AltaVista gives some index tips on its site , the most useful being that information placed higher on a page is more important. When you arrange your content on a page, think top, not deep. Dynamic or database-driven pages block or slow the spiders. AltaVista's spiders do not read database-driven sites, active server pages , Java applets , XML or PDF files. Andrei Broder, vice president of research and chief scientist for AltaVista, says other than these guidelines, there are no optimization secrets .
Good content leads to site popularity and high rankings.
Google's PageRank system states that links to your site strengthen its ranking. But it's a bit tricky. But before you go out and solicit links to your site , know that Google considers more than vote volume. It considers which sites give you votes. Votes given by pages that are themselves important are worth more and help give other pages a higher ranking.