In the past month, Google has pushed out a softer Panda update, quietly updated their link schemes guidelines and issued warnings to manipulative browser actions.

With that, a lot of SEOs became worried about press releases and article marketing – especially with “optimized keyword rich anchor text” in them. The jury is still in on how this will play out, but a typical slow summer was not that slow.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread had a bit more chatter earlier around August 1st and 2nd but the weekend was pretty quiet in terms of that chatter. Meaning, not much ranking changes over the weekend.

For last’ month’s recap, see the July report. Here is the monthly recap as we saw it:

Google Updates:

Confirmed: Google Panda Update: The “Softer” Panda Algorithm
Was There A Weekend Google Update?
Google May Be Updating Search Algorithm

Google Links & Penalties:

Google Updates Link Schemes Examples With Mentions Of Guest Posting, Advertorials & Press Releases
Google: Links In Press Releases Are Unnatural Links & Should Be Nofollowed
Google To Penalize Sites Manipulating Browser Back Button & Faking Search Results

Google SEO:

What SEOs Are Focusing On With Enge’s Interview With Google’s Matt Cutts
Can You Redirect A Google Penalty? Probably.
Google’s Cutts: Be Careful Linking Many Sites Together
Google’s Matt Cutts On Using ccTLDs
Google’s Matt Cutts: You Can Hide Content Only When…
Google’s Cutts Says Don’t Worry About Duplicate Content But SEOs Don’t Trust
Google’s Matt Cutts On What If My Site Goes Down? Are My Rankings Doomed?

Google User Interface:

Google Tests Sitelinks That Expand Out
Google Continues To Ask Searchers Which Results They Prefer

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.