Shoestring - 8:20 pm on Oct 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

"I decided the best keyword density is using the keyword as many times in the text as I can while making it still sound good to my visitors."

I could not agree more. It is not anywhere close to as big of a factor as it was years ago.

Generally, I work to fill the page as much as possible as above, maximizing pharases in particular to match title/desc. etc. and then forget about it.

Doing this, sometimes the end result is fairly high density on a single key if it is a product name for instance. Personally, I DO NOT see any evidence that Google penalizes for high density, at least not on a "real" page of copy with 500+ total words... For something short, more along the lines of a doorway, they very well may for all I know, however...

Bottom line, I see wild density differences among top serps all the time. Position one might be 3.5%, with 2 at 7.2% and three at 2.4%. Again, not the pivitol factor today, IMO.