Here is an interesting tidbit from outspokenmedia.com

High level view of Google’s algorithm

* Trust authority of host domain – 25 percent
* Link population of specific page – 22 percent
* Anchor text of external links – 20 percent
* On page keyword use – 15 percent
* Traffic and CTR data – 7 percent
* Social graph metrics – 6 percent
* Hosting and registration – 5 percent

I haven’t seen any raw data supporting these claims, but they do they make sense. The most important things for me are the apparently low keyword number and the high trust authority number.

The anchor text of external links is very important, this dictates your phrase. You must be consistent and your links must be relevant. Staying away from black hat techniques and fighting for respected back links rather than random ones is what will set you apart from your competitors.

If you want to know more about the actual Google Algorithm and it’s history, look no further than the Stanford paper written by the Google founders.