There are hundreds of millions of Web pages, so almost any query is likely to have a huge number of matches. For search results to be useful, search engines must rank more highly pages that are most likely to have relevant information. Major seach engines' formula for doing that is a closely kept secret (like the formula for Coca-Cola), and is subject to continuous fine-tuning. But an understanding of the main ingredients can help you build pages that will be valued by search engines and hence found by people who use them.

Content counts; content near the top of a page counts more than content at the end. In particular, the HTML title and the first few lines of text are the most important part of your pages. If the words and phrases that match a query happen to appear in the HTML title or first lines of text of one of your pages, chances are very good that that page will appear high in the list of search results.

Say you want to put your resume on the Web. Keep this rule in mind: Don't put your name first. You aren't trying to be found by people who already know you. You want to be found by people who have never heard of you. So don't waste any letter in the HTML title on your own name. The first word should be "resume." After that, list your main qualifications and the kinds of jobs that you are looking for. Put the same kinds of things in the first lines of text. That's what will come up as the default as the description in match list, and it's also an important position for ranking.