Matt: It’s ours! We’ve stolen the precious Google algo from the ‘plex.

Today I saw a post by Rand on SEOMoz about "if the Google Algorthym was leaked"….it’s a fun reading post, where in the middle Rand and Rebecca of SEO Moz start dreaming this:

Matt: It’s ours! We’ve stolen the precious Google algo from the ‘plex.
Rebecca: Yeah, with our newfound knowledge, we can rule this puny Internet!
Rand: OK, wait – let’s examine it and see what we need to do.
(six months of IR research later)
Rand: Aha! I’ve got it!
Matt & Rebecca (in chorus): What, what is it?
Rand: Links! We need links.

Rand finished up the article with a very true point:

Honestly, at this point in the SEO game, it pays to be a great business strategist, a creative content developer and a phenomenal marketer far more than an analyzer of algorithms…

In the comments, Softplus adds:

…The algorithm could – if expressable in a single formula – be a function with those 200 signals, some weighting, perhaps some combined weighting with inverse signals… let’s just simplify to an unrealistic:

Rank(page.site) = weight1 * signal1 + weight2 * signal2 … weight200 * signal200

The interesting parts would be the weights — the main signals which are used…

Later in the comments, Blackbeard makes the best point with:

Here is the funny thing: having the knowledge of how it works doesn’t automatically mean victory. I mean, it’s common knowledge that Google’s algo is largely a link-based algo. Now, assuming that links and domain age are in the top 10 factors, even if you knew the algo and figured out what the other factors are and what the weights are, that woudln’t guarantee victory. If you try to rank on a super-competitive term where there are a bunch of 10 year old domains with tons of edu links and other high-quality links, knowing the algo only tells you one thing: that it’s going to be extremely difficult to beat them.

At the end of the day the algorightm is only how the system works. Being successful in that system still requires real work. I mean, even if you had the recepie for KFC, you’d still have to make it and sell it to be successful and it would take years to be anywhere as successful as KFC is.

I also can’t help but think that knowing is still only half the battle. Knowing "the perfect types of links" and what you are able to achieve, might be 2 different things. A lot of us know what a "perfect link" would be for our sites….but the real trick is…after you’ve got the knowledge, what can you do with it….what are you working with, and what are resources can you impliment with the knowledge of "where you are", "where your competitors are (Google top 10)" and how to bridge that gap…..but once you’ve got that down, how do you bridge that gap…..

Good content can help…..slowly.
Great content can help faster.
Good backlinks can help.
Great backlinks can help better.
The history of your backlinks (you can’t change your past).
The history of your competitors backlinks (can’t change that either)
Creating a Strategy
Following through with the resources it takes – and doing it well eneough to compete.

Later in the comments though, Fluxx then add the true reality to this dream of being handed the google algorithm:

I’m surprised that nobody has suggested that the algo is so complicated & spread across multiple machines and infrastructures — that even if it leaked, it would take a team of CIA cryptographers a week to make sense of it.

So what do you do then? Use the Google Force. For long term, stay away from the dark side. Know what the engines like (resources with great links) and create it.

We’ve all got a Google God (Jim’s 15 commandments) in our head….we all have in image of what She wants from us, and we do our best to deliver to Her the best we can with what we’re able to achieve as far as creating a resource, and building backlinks.  Time will tell you if the content and links you’re getting today, will support your site tomorrow.

— Read the entire "Google Algorithm" post on SEO Moz.