Greg Boser (WebGuerilla) calls the just released Google patent (US Patent Application #20050071741), "The most important SEO related document in the last 5 years." He's probably right. This document explains, in a slightly technical format, the methodology for some of Google's more advanced algorithm techniques. While much of this information has been speculated about and tossed around in the SEO community over the last 18-24 months, it's shocking to see that Google handed in this patent for approval on December 31 of 2003.

The backlash in the SEO community and massive amounts of discussion on this subject will undoubtedly be felt for months to come. It's lucky for Google that they were able to keep all of this information "in the bag" for so long.

I will have a full re-cap, including diagrams, a walkthrough of each of the 63 points made in the patent and information on Google's explanation of each procedure written up and posted by tomorrow in the articles section. For now, I'm swamped with an 8 page MS Word document that keeps getting bigger.

Update - SEOmoz has a complete summary of the patent in the articles database.