Google PageRank

One aspect of Internet communication that I haven't been able to comfortably grasp is the methods and criteria by which website content is selected and displayed by the various search engines. The reason is that all explanations I've seen ultimately end with a note that some type of subjective determination is made by someone which rates a website's content versus all other sites' content. So, placement is heavily based on the opinion of some person or group, which is not easily definable.

Providing some guidance with regard to methods and criteria used by search engines, in general, and Google, in particular, is this post at Blog Business World. It's informative for those who wonder why their website's content is ranked as it is. While visiting, be sure to check out this week's Carnival of the Capitalists.