One of the best ways to understand how search engine optimization works is to build your own search engine. Now, wouldn't it be outstanding to have someone who works at Google teach you how to build your own search engine? Wouldn't it be better if it was free? You are in luck!
Udacity has a class on building a search engine 101 and it is being led by a Google Fellow named Sebastian Thrun. He is pretty well known, check out his Wikipedia page; he is a Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and works on Google's self driving car.
In fact, he even got Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, to vouch for people to take the class. See the video below:
I am going to sign up myself, I just hope I can make it through with a new baby, my existing work schedule and all.
Michael Martinez posted this in the High Rankings Forum and is worried it will lead to tons of rogue spiders going wild all over the internet. In response to that, one of the students said:
@seo_theory Udacity told us not to go rogue, used test sites, not real Internet, discussed politeness, cost, had Google guest speaker, etc.
— P. Oppenheimer (@priscillaoppy) April 10, 2012
Forum discussion at High Rankings Forum.