A theory on the new algorithm

Is the threshold for keywords lower?

[stuntdubl]

I have heard a couple of times since the update that some people think that Google has lowered the threshold for the number of times a keyword can appear on a page before it is considered spam. One of my main keywords is 'MY CITY' for my company's website. I am hoping to secure at least the number two spot for this keyword (right under 'mycity.com'), but have been unable to do so as of yet, and I am wondering if the number of times the keyword appears on my page. The keyword currently appears eleven times, and I could probably reasonably cut a few.

My question, however, is.....what is everyone's opinion on the optimum number of times to have a keyword (considering it as a single word keyphrase)?

[Jane_Doe]

I don't know the optimum, but I had a high traffic page that was rather keyword dense and in the last update the page went from #14 in the SERPs into oblivion (ouch). I think that at least one of the reasons for the drop may have been that the keyword was repeated too many times, as similar pages in the same site, but with lower keyword density, stayed at relatively the same rankings.

When I have time, I'm going to run the pages that are now in the top 20 for that term through one of the keywords density analyser programs and change the density of my page to try to match the average the top pages.

[cminblues]

I confirm this, at 100%, but with 1 more specification.

In this update, many of my pages have lost positions, and others [of mine also] have earned.

All the pages 'penalized' have keyw density > than pages going up.

The additional spec is:
-----------------------
The keyws that triggered the filter, are only the very most-searched/competitive.

cminblues

[mack]

On my profile site i have a very low keyword density but good anchor link text (in most cases) my ranking took a turn for the better without any major page changes.

My gues is they will keep on changing it so we never get a grip with the optimum figure. Google don't want us to optimise for them. They want to find us as we are and rank us accordingly.