OT - How do search engines work?

There is only one airport and few related sites. There are hunderds of
'hotel guides' with which you are competing for top positioning. If
there was a guarenteed way to get the top spot, everyone would do it,
and of course it would be impossible for everyone to be there. As
others have said, Google does not use meta tags, but instead some of
their own magic having to do with how many are linked to you. You
might find some info at http://searchenginewatch.com/
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.


When I type in "Iowa City Airport" at the Yahoo search screen, our "History
of the Iowa City Airport" webpage pops up second on the list -- which is all
well and fine.

When I type in "Iowa City Hotels" at the Yahoo search screen, however, our
hotel website doesn't appear at all. Well, maybe it's five pages in, but
who's going to bother to look there?

I've studied meta tags, and key words, and I believe I've got things set up
properly for the "robots" to see -- yet the stupid "Weather Underground" and
"Sheraton" sites pops up ahead of our hotel. (And they don't even appear to
be using meta tags...)

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?