Search Engine Positioning (with CD Rom) by Fredrick W. Marckini

The first thought that comes to my mind when thinking of Search Engine Positioning is "Wow!"...The second thing that comes to mind is what a great reference book.

Search Engine Positioning, written by the CEO and founder of the highly-successful search engine promotion biz iProspect.com, is an incredible book on the subject. Marckini keeps his readers up-to-date on what is happening behind-the-scenes at all the major search engines as well as the not-so major ones. This book works great as a reference book if you are merely interested in looking up the details of each particular search engine/directory so that you can optimize your site before submittal, but I highly recommend reading the book from cover-to-cover, as it is well-written in a fun and casual style. It is also worth reading how to optimize your site in general, as Marckini reveals in depth all the tips and tricks regarding what is relevant according to search engines. He also explains some of the colorful history of the business of search engines - who is behind them and why they do what they do.

Using Search Engine Positioning, Maximize Web Site Traffic and 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site, I turned one site's daily unique visitor count to 20 times what it started at. I highly recommend all three books as some of the best tools in a Web site marketer's/search engine optimizer's toolkit. - Katharina Woodworth, Assistant Editor

For a more detailed look at the contents:

Part One: Understanding Search Engines and Search Engine Positioning
1. The History of Search Engines and Search Engine Positioning
2. The Case for Search Engine Positioning Chapter
3. Understanding Search Referrals and Traffic Chapter
4. Choosing the Right Keywords, in the Right Combinations

Part Two: Tactics for Search Engine Positioning
5. Factors That Greatly Affect Your Relevancy in Spider-Based Search Engines
6. META Tags, Metadata, and Where to Place Keywords
7. Domain Name Selection
8. Submitting Your Site
9. Spamdexing and Other Unhealthy Habits
10. Search Engine Positioning Begins with Web Site Design

Part Three: The Engines
11. Yahoo!
12. About.com
13. AltaVista
14. AOL Search
15. Ask Jeeves
16. Excite
17. FAST
18. GO.com
19. Google
20. HotBot
21. Inktomi
22. iWon
23. LookSmart
24. Lycos
25. MSN
26. NBCi
27. Netscape Search
28. Northern Light
29. Open Directory
30. Raging Search
31. WebCrawler
32. Metasearch Engines
33. Paying for Placement

Part Four: Tools and Resources
34. Submitting and Rank-Checking Tools
35. Building Informational Pages
36. Assessing Your Performance
37. Buying Advertising on Search Engines
38. The Sociology of Cloaking
39. Case Studies Chapter
40. The Future of Search Engine Positioning

Amazon: $34.96
Barnes & Noble: $39.96