How to be a top-ranked google site

Factual Questions
1

I searched SDMB, but there are so many references to Google 'round here that it’s scary.

So how does Google rank pages?

Why would a page that mentioned someone I know be at the top one month, and 10 pages deep the next?

Why do some funny search terms, such as “weapons of mass destruction” always link to a funny “not found” page as the highest ranking hit?

Does Google rank off the the of links to the page from OTHER pages??? The number of links or HITS from those links???

2

Look up “googlewash”. Google’s “ranking” system is an utter and complete joke. What you need to do is get the “A-list” bloggers to link to your site.

3

Google is constantly changing the algorithm they use for searching, both to improve searching in general and to help prevent people from gaming the system.

4

This is a page that explains Google’s ranking algorithm:

And this is the original research paper:
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

Yes, the algorithm is a bit simplistic (but note that the full details are kept secret for good reasons). There are weaknesses that can be exploited. Unfortunately we have nothing much better for the same task on the same scale. More in-depth analysis of pages, their content and their relation to each other could certainly be done but we are talking about a huge database and barely defined concepts of “relevance”. There is research on different approaches to problems of information management but the tough part is finding an approach that is efficient enough to be practically usable on a large enough scale with todays ressources.

I think the “second superpower” example is extremely flawed and google can hardly be blamed for that.

5

There’s a cottage industry called Search Engine Optimization(SEO). For a fee, you can get your site at the top of the rankings(supposedly). In prior lifes, the SEO folks were probably reading tea leaves.

Google protects and changes their ranking rules like the CIA. SE isn’t about the webmasters but the users.

A few years ago when I first started my sites, I didn’t know of google, but I knew how I found sites on my subject, I clicked links from relevant sites. So I worked to get others to link to mine. Lo and behold, when I found google to find other sites that might link, mine were at the top.