Search engines send out little “robots” or “spiders” that scour the web reading as many web pages as they can find and shoot their findings back into giant databases. Complex algorithms read this information-- the text on your pages, in the titles, the paragraphs, sometimes the names of your graphics, the number of links you have within your site that lead to related keywords, the number of related external sites that link to you, how updated and fresh the content of your pages are... the list is practically endless. So you never know how, when or at what a search engine will be looking.

By understanding the methodology of the search engine tactics and how they work, ways of building your site become clear, offering a much improved chance of being towards the top of a search result list. Knowing what doesn't appeal to the engines and how not to construct your site is equally as important.

Web sites can be full of multimedia, music, animation and features that create a truly visually stimulating experience for the user. But most of these sites have thousands of dollars to spend on television ad campaigns or established branding that drive users to their site.

These companies don’t need to rely on search engines to drive their customer base. They're usually well established brands or large corporations to drive viewers to their sites through massive television and print advertising campaigns. Website features that may look “cool” usually inhibit crawlers that move around the we, indexing your site. The spiders get angry and go away. Search engines don’t pull well with some features like image maps, frames -Java Script (mouse rollovers, arrays, nav menus) -dynamic or database driven, CGI_BIN, or flash.

These types of programming are sometimes necessary, and often needed to produce a superior site for clients. We can build a site with these ideas in mind though and use some work arounds to make the site more search engine friendly without loosing aesthetic value.

The process of making a web page more attractive to search engines for a given keyword phrase is called search engine optimization. Once you have an optimized page up and running on the internet the next logical question is "how long til I'm listed?" Unfortunately, there isn't a set time period. It could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months before the search engines thoroughly index your new pages. If you've not submitted your site to a particular search engine within the past few months, you could manually submit it again, though this doesn't always make things move any faster. The search spiders are out there, and they will find you. Depending how well your page is optimized for a particular key word will then determine where you rank in a search once your page is thoroughly indexed.