HTML, XHTML, and CSS: Your visual blueprint™ for designing effective Web pages

Chapter 17. GETTING YOUR SITE LISTED ON SEARCH ENGINES

Understanding Search Engine Optimization

Search engines are a primary way that many users will find your site, so ensuring that your pages will appear as high as possible in the results is a key factor in increasing the number of site visitors.

Early Search Techniques

In the mid-1990s, as the Web began to rise in popularity, the first search engines appeared to help users find information in the exponentially increasing number of pages on the Web. These early search engines relied on Web masters to self-describe their pages by using the meta element in HTML to add keywords and descriptions of the page content. Unfortunately, it became too easy to manipulate the system by inserting keywords that ...