Non-indexing engines depend on the information you provide to them to list your site. Regardless of the type of search engine or directory, they all maintain their own database of site information which contain indexed descriptions of web pages. The average time between submitting your URL and getting it into the databases varies greatly between the search engines. Several of the larger, true indexing engines will post your new submission within 24-48 hours. Directories can take up to 5-8 weeks.
Search engines rank each document they find in relation to a given search query.
Relevant scores reflect the number of times a search term appears, if it appears in the title, if it appears at the beginning of the document or HTML tags, and if all the search terms are near each other. Each search engine uses a different method of ranking. Some use META information, some do not. Many of the major search engines are in a state of constant change. What was acceptable last week may not be today.