The Google algorithm is a closely guarded secret. Last week a post at Digital Point forums started a conversation about why the algo hasn't yet been leaked to the world. Rand at SEOmoz followed this up with a brief post of his own conjecturing how the industry would change should such a leak occur. His conclusion: not much.

Today, Rand follows up with his own post releasing what he believes to be the (extremely simplified version) of the Google Algorithm.

Rands version probably in no way represents the real Google algorithm, which is undoubtedly much more mathematically complex than this, but Rand's algorithm "leak" does provide us with some insight of what we do know about how Google ranks websites.

It's been stated that Google analyzes over 200 different "signals", many known, many speculated about and I'm sure some may not have even been dreamt up by those of us in the industry. So how does one go about "beating" the algorithm? They don't. The best thing to do is simply to produce a quality site that is worthy of industry and customer recognition. There is nothing wrong with providing the search engines what they want, within the context of providing visitors what they need. Visitors come first!

And if you're wondering when the full Google algorithm will be leaked to the masses, consider the formula for Coke. That's been under wraps for over 100 years!