ABOUT SEARCH ENGINE RANKING
All search engines are not created equally. You probably
have a favorite, because it gives you good results or is easy to use
-- or both.
Some search engines aren't even search engines; they're
directories or catalogs of websites. But the difference is subtle
and not important to the average person.
The difference in results is due to how they read, classify, and rank various elements of each website they visit.
Some search engines (and directories) count the readable words
on a page to determine what that page is about. If the word "cooking"
shows up more than any other word on that page, the search engine will
likely assume the page is about cooking.
Other search engines may read the "meta"
tags which are hidden code. There is --or should be -- a meta Title tag and a meta Description tag on every page. The meta (hidden) Title tag is what shows up when you search for something.
The meta Keywords tag is rarely used by directories or search engines anymore, so don't worry much about it.
The list goes on. Our job, when we design a
website or when we maintain an existing website, is to know what's
in that list.
We spend a lot of time and money keeping ourselves educated
to the ins and outs of search engines.
For example, you may not realize that when you look
at the text on some websites, it isn't really machine-readable text,
it's an image. 
No search engine can "read" images although
some can read the "alt" text of an image. That's the text
that shows up when you hold your mouse over an image for a second.
Having text in image format is essential for certain
effects, such as using a font that isn't universal. But an entire page of image text will
render it nearly invisible to most search engines. So a search
engine-savvy web designer will take that into consideration when
designing
a website.
Google is the most popular search engine, but Bing/Yahoo! may start pulling closer since they've joined forces.
All search engines have "spiders" or "robots" that "crawl"
the web, going from site to site, seeing what's there.
Once you do get listed, your work (or ours)
isn't over. New websites are added to the Internet daily and some will be in competition with yours. So, just because you're
#3 in search results today doesn't mean you'll stay #3.
Keeping or improving a website's ranking in search
results is often as much work as getting there in the first place.
If you'd rather we worry about this stuff because
you have been lost since paragraph two, please check out our Services
page. We offer a monthly maintenance plan that can be used to work on
search engine ranking, as well as a tailored submission program for
new and existing websites.