Marcia - 1:56 pm on Nov 10, 2007 (gmt 0)

7. Myth: What you eat for breakfast isn't important to Google
I ate wheat bran chex for breakfast instead of shredded wheat and my rankings dropped on two sites.

3. Myth: Natural link text is important The most natural link is either “click here” (Adobe ranks #1 for Acrobat reader) or the name of the company. “Varied” link text is actually unnatural.

Bad example. Adobe ranks #1 for Acrobat Reader because:
a) They're authoritative for Acrobat Reader
b) There is plenty of IBL anchor text that includes "Acrobat Reader"
c) Co-occurrence, with even "Click here"in close proxity to the phrase.

They also rank #1 & #2 for "Click here."

5. Myth: Links from topically relevant sites are critical Search for “financial services” and Adobe appears #5. Why? Because their homepage (PR 10) links to a page with the words “financial services”.

Another flimsy example. Look again: that page is optimized for financial services.

Your statement #5 is in complete disregard and contradiction of keyword co-occurrence and computation of related phrases. These myths are just about as logical as Myth #7.

[edited by: Marcia at 2:05 pm (utc) on Nov. 10, 2007]