Remember a while back I talked about what is required to increase your rank in Google?  I found this interesting article in Wired Magazine where a Search Engine Optimizer is interviewed.  In the article, Greg Boser talks about how his company, WebGuerrilla manipulates Google’s PageRank software – the software responsible for ordering the list of search results.

Per Google, "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves 'important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important.'"

The gist of the article is this – if you want your site to rank really really high, get lots and lots of people to link to you.  Link exchanges DO work, but you need lots of them.

— Matt Ranlett