There are two new interviews available, one from Google’s VP of search quality, Udi Manber, and one from Googler Matt Cutts.

Popular Mechanics interviewed Udi Manber and posted the interview transcript online. Matt Cutts did an audio/podcast interview with Duct Tape Marketing. Here is a summary of my notes from each interview:

Udi Manber Interview: - 450 Algorithmic Improvements in Google Search Last Year - Google Doesn’t Manually Change Results (see Matt Cutts on that) - The “Art of Ranking” is about collecting a log of signals, and signals from people are the best signals. Udi adds, “We have several tools” to obtain signals from people.

Matt Cutts Podcast: - White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO - 3 Tips To Build a Great Web Site – Make a Great Resource – Start a Blog (shows human face) – (He didn’t have the opportunity to give a third) - On Page SEO Topics – “Started” using META description for snippet in some cases – Title tags are very useful – May give H1 tag a little more weight – No exact percentage for keyword density – and more…

Related Topics: Google: Employees | Google: SEO

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz