In the last 10 years, the Internet has grown exponentially with thousands of new web sites appearing each year. Consumer tools called search engines developed with databases that catalog and store the information found on web sites. Search engines allow people to search the databases, giving them a way to sort through the vast amount of information found on the Internet. As the Internet continues to grow, so does its value as a marketing vehicle.

The way that search engines rank results soon became the focus of webmasters and site owners. When a user performs a search, the search engine has to determine which documents are most relevant to the keywords the user types in. Webmasters began studying the factors that search engines used to rank documents and began manipulating these factors on web pages in order to rank higher in the search engine results. The search engine's importance in Internet marketing increased when webmasters begin to focus on it as a marketing tool.

An entire science has developed around improving rankings in search engines, and it is known as search engine optimization. Many misconceptions still remain about what search engine optimization is and what it isn't. This web site's objective is to help people understand what search engine optimization, or "SEO," is and where it is going.

Misconceptions on SEO abound because while most webmasters and site owners are familiar with the concept, most of them still do not fully understand what is involved in search engine optimization. In order to understand this, it is important to know what goes on behind the scenes between the web pages and the search engines. The Anatomy of a Web Page is the first article in SEO Profile's Introduction to Search Engine Optimization.