For example: "2 or 3 years ago links was 80-90% of what it took to get something ranked, Panda has changed that in an insane way. Here's the test example. Go to Google and search for 'best time to visit Tahiti'. You'll find my little site, VisualItineraries up there, #1 for that, ahead of TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, USA Today, all these other sites. These other sites have between 10,000 and 250,000 domains linking to them. My site has under 100. I rank #1 for that. Now in case you think it's internal link, anchor text, or page title match. Here's the other proof. Do a google search for 'when should I go to French Polynesia'. The only word in that that matches the page title or any anchor text is the word 'to' - (and it's a) stop word - that's not going to count. VisualItineraries.com is #1 for that too.
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RvRUt9ejkw