Well, first I'm going to recommened learning how to use a submit button :D
Sorry, I just coudn't resist.

I have been reading about SEO every night until my eyes are blood shot and I
am starting to come to the conclusion that it is just like everything else that
you don't understand. It will only make sense when it becomes second nature to
you, much like developing software if you are a software developer, or laying
brick if you are a brick layer. I certainly haven't figure it out yet by any
stretch of the imagination, but I am certainly determined to figure, because if
you aren't at the top of the search engines, it's not really worth having a
website in my opinion.

There are countless resources you can look to. Just google it and search for
"seo forums" and start reading. Bottom line is that there is no silver bullet.
At least to my knowledge.

Originally posted by: meagerthere is no silver bullet. At least to my knowledge.
Yes I would agree with you meager.

The way the different search engines give ranking points are ALL different.
So making a site that is MSN friendly, that will give you a ton of ranking
points in MSN, might not be the case in Google for say.
But in the SEO world, there is 3 No No(s) in site design for ranking.
1: ALL FLASH
2: iFrames
3: Redirect Scripts

I know for a fact Google will punish your points badly for redirect scripts.

Now with that being said, I'm not saying you can not get some good ranking
points using them, I'm saying it makes it harder, because you would have to
make up lost points in them areas.

You can get a good rank with using both flash and iFrames, but the normal site
design creator does not have the knowledge to do so. The domain I pointed out
above, his webmaster did not have the knowledge to do what I needed done to the
design to again make up lost points. So I was hired as the webmaster also over
there.

When FrontPage come out EVERYONE thought they were a webmaster now. "I clicked
and made a site, now I'm a webmaster"! I just think that is too funny.
That is what the owner of the domain I pointed out above got, a CLICK HERE
webmaster, and that directly affected his ranking because the click here
webmasters don't know better.

Again search engines LOVE content........... Period!
Make the site W3C compliant, and get a TON of ranking points! LOL

That's why flash is no good, because the spiders can not see the content in
flash, all they see is "whatever.swf", and that's why ALL flash sites are not
good if you want your site to have a good ranking and be in the top 20.

There are ways around that, like you pointed out, dup your site in html and
use a redirect. You get some punish points, but it is better then no content at
all.

So to sum it up here.
You're 100% correct, "there is no silver bullet.", but when you learn what you
get points for and what you get punished for, you will get a better rank when
you design around that knowledge. ;)