What they really want to know is, "How can I get people to show up to my website without spending any money on advertising my site!"

People usually don't like my answer because accomplishing a "top ten ranking" on any search engine always requires careful thought along with a significant amount of work.

Three types of "Search engines" abound on Internet. They include true search engines, directories, and links pages.

At last count approximately 10,000 sites referred to themselves as search engines, though only about a dozen sites rate your attention since they drive 97% of Internet's search traffic.

These sites include Google, Yahoo!, Overture, MSN, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Lycos, DMOZ, and a few others.

When a visitor logs onto a search engine looking for information, they enter "keywords" about subject in hopes of obtaining a list of relevant websites.

Each search engine or directory operates with its own rules about judging a site's relevancy to a keyword search.

They look at text on web page (body text) as well as words you can't see which reside in actual code of web pages.

This code includes such things as alt tags, title tags, and others.

Who hasn't surfed web looking for information only to have their session interrupted by those annoying pop-up windows displaying everything from banner ads to newsletter sign-up's?

Though pop-up windows and other methods of influencing a user's online experiences originally had positive intentions, they now seem only to annoy and manipulate users at every turn.

For anyone who ever felt extremely irritated by online advertising, following advice should help.

** Pop-Up Ads **

Pop-up windows open new pages in your browser without your permission and, sometimes, without your knowledge.

They slow down your surfing and cause confusion, even for most experienced surfer.

If you don't want to see pop-up windows in your browser, you should get a free pop-up blocker like ones that come with Google tool bar (http:/ oolbar.google.com) or Alexa tool bar (http://download.alexa.com).

Either of these free tools "plug in" to your web browser and will stop majority of pop-ups, including situations where 5 or 10 pop-up windows fly up on your screen and "attack" you all at once!

** Page Hijacking **

Have you ever surfed along peacefully when all of a sudden you hit your back button and nothing happened?

Click-click-click - no matter how many times you hit button, it seemed your web browser had been "wheel locked" to a certain site and no amount of effort allowed you to back track.