Different search engines go about things different ways so you are unlikely to get high ranking pages on a number search engines.

Google, to the best of my knowledge, does not use Metatags at all but uses a ranking system based on links to your site. I believe it works something like the more links to your site, the more "important" your site is. Similarly, sites that provide links to your site are ranked and the more "important" that site is, the more thier link to your site counts in the ranking. As such, it's not surprising jennifer reported what she did.

You would have to read up on how other search engines work to develop strategies.

Most search engines use crawlers which follow links through the Internet so provided you have a link to your site from a site that is already on a particular search engine, your site would be found in time.

There are also services such as submit-it.com where you can submit your page to a number of search engines for free.

Jon