Yes, much better. Eventually Google will get to the point where SEO techniques won't work & won't be needed, because it will rank websites entirely on the quality of the content, rather than how many links there are to it.
Yes, after panda update google more better and also strict. After panda update google strict about paid link and spam link. If you follow google guidelines than google panda update surely beneficial for you.
Definitely better before the updates. The search results were far more varied and offered users a greater amount of choice. Recently though Google's organic results tend to be over-populated with sites such as eBay and Amazon (etc) - I've seen Amazon appear in 18 of the top 20 results for a particular search and that doesn't offer users the best results, so Google is, in my opinion, worse than it has been for a long time.
I have to agree that Google's results now offer less variety and are more focused on the promotion of bigger websites/companies at the expense of smaller sites. I too have seen results being dominated by certain sites like Amazon and eBay. Of course they also appeared before, but these sites were only in there once or twice with the other positions being taken up by other smaller sites. Variety within the results would seem to me to be a basic requirement for good quality search results and because of this lack of variety they are now definitely poorer.
Before the panda updates google is easy to get rankings but for this you need to create thousands of backlinks to get in the top SERP result. Now build few but quality backlinks and you will get better ranking in google. Google is now much better than before panda and penguin updates.
Google's main focus has always been to deliver the highest quality services to their customers (searchers), so if you provide quality content chances are you will get backlinks normally.
i used to think that but not any more, now i have way more traffic than i used to have in 2011, and all that thanks to unique stuff
In some segments SERP isn't relevant at all. Maybe Google killed many doorways and spam-sites, but together with them many good sites have lost their places in search results. So it's hard to say if it’s better before panda or not, but it's definitely much harder to promote sites now.
Google is always better than panda. Panda is just another spin off but Google will definitely dominate panda
From my experience, it is definitely better now. At least what I searched for are truly close to what I want.
I stand in the role of user and is not webmaster I sometimes find some necessary information, but takes more time and sometimes can not find the information I need, I have to constantly change keywords
Google Panda is always made to improve search results, so in my opinion yes - it's probably better now. They reward for quality links. It can improve user exprience but it can harm some "seo experts".
Massively better. It's like being back in 2003 again. Back then, you could write something useful and new, and it would rank fast.