Michael_Weir - 7:40 pm on Jan 16, 2002 (gmt 0)

>>>>>>it seems to me that yahoo and google like the keyword phrase starting at the second word in the title.

I agree with you on this. I just did a search on yahoo using a two word phrase. The first two results have three word titles with the search phrase being the second and third words. The number 3 result's title contains four words, with the last two words being the search phrase. Oddly, the 5th result is just like the 1st and 2nd - it contains 3 words in the title with the second and third words being the search phrase. It would seem that yahoo particularly favors such word/title placement, but the keyword weight and frequency in the description also play a big role in determining how your site will be ranked in their directory.

The puzzling aspect of this certain search is, the number one site in the results page contains only one of the words in the search phrase TWICE. Hmmmm....