Here’s an interesting tidbit from Google: A recent patent filed by Sergey Brin for their search technology “invention” that describes some of the inner workings of how Google ranks pages. After reading this you’ll either: a) get very excited b) fall asleep
If you’re interested in that, you’ll also like the classic “The Anatomy of a Search Engine. I’m sure there are a few out there that would like to see a digested version of this information that provides specific web development and copywriting guidelines. For the most part, it’s still true that a site with robust, quality content that is well-linked will do nicely on Google.