Imagine it's the semi-finals of the U.S. Open and Roger Federer hits a ball that lands near the base line. "Is it in or out?" the world's No. 1 player asks the linesman, who shrugs and then the chair umpire. The umpire responds, "I can't tell you. But we'll let you know when we total up the score."

That's the way the rules for search engine rankings seem to work in the world of the major players, Microsoft and Google.  We know there are rules and we can deduce some of them when we see how well articles on our Web sites do in appearing in searches.

Businesses that want to be named Master VARs by Microsoft must have a minimum of $1 million operating capital and at least $500,000 in gross license revenue in the previous 12 months. Those are some of the terms spelled out last week in a blog post by Jeff Edwards, director of channel strategy for Microsoft Business Solutions.

Imagine it's the semi-finals of the U.S. Open and Roger Federer hits a ball that lands near the base line. "Is it in or out?" the world's No. 1 player asks the linesman, who shrugs and then the chair umpire. The umpire responds, "I can't tell you. But we'll let you know when we total up the score."

That's the way the rules for search engine rankings seem to work in the world of the major players, Microsoft and Google.  We know there are rules and we can deduce some of them when we see how well articles on our Web sites do in appearing in searches.