NYTimes.com Article: In Searching the Web, Google Finds Riches

[Joseph S. Barrera III]

James Rogers wrote:

>  Search engines that can effectively obscure the source data used in
>  the ranking algorithms, like Google, are substantially less
>  vulnerable to the type of attack I used.

Actually, I think the reason google is hard to manipulate is that the 
source data are
not under your control -- they are on other web sites pointing to (or 
not to) your page.
In other words, obscurity of the algorithm is not its defence (which for 
google is good).

- Joe