I'm seeking an extremely exhaustive list of input factors used by
search engines like Google and Yahoo! For example: Keywords in Page
Title, Keywords in Alt Tags, Keywords in Incoming Links, Meta Tags,
etc.

Ideally I'd appreciate descriptions of each of these, how best to
optimize for them, what their relative/comparitive value is, and which
search engines do/do not use them.

I understand that there are well over 100 inputs used in an algorithim
for big search engines like Google so please be as exhaustive as you
can.

Thanks for your help,
SF

See here for discussions on it (follow the four links as well)
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/22326.htm

If you manage to find the 100 factors, you'll be more knowledgable
than 99.9% of professional search engine optimizers.

In my opinion, after attending to very basic SEO, time is better spent
on getting links and developing content.

Someone has posted what will surely answer your question at WebMasterWorld:
http://www.webmasterworld.com

The bad news is that it is in a subscribers-only forum, and will cost
$89 to read it.

there are lot of things are there to list in google & yahoo. it is
based on Title , meta tags, content in the page, domain name, inbound
links and more and more.... first you have to optimize your sites then
try to get inbound quality related links to your site thats it, then
see the results. Both in yahoo and google.

(sorry, my english is not very good)
One month ago, Yahoo was using Google's search engine, so you just
need to optimize your site for Google.
Now, Yahoo uses their own engine, but the main input factors are basicly the same.

You don't need to optimize 100 factors, you just need to pay attention
to this 6 o 7:
TITLE: it's very important that 5 o 6 keywords appears on your title.
KEYWORDS in incoming links: Importants, but don't make web-spam...
KEYWORD DENSITY: this is one of the most important thing. your
keyword's density should be more then 5%.
If your page hase 100 words, your keyword must appear at least 5 times
FONT SIZE: Putting your keywords in H1,H2... will improve your ranking results.

On the other hand, META: aren't used by none of them, forget it!

Also, you need to get as many backlinks as you can, because Pagerank
(and Yahoo similar ranking system) are multiplier factors that could
improve your results.
It's important too, that you should get backlinks from sites with the
same motif that yours.
For example, if your site is about cars, you should get backlinks from
car-rentals websites, car competitions.. and no by fruit and
vegetables websites.

Hope you find it useful!

Best regards

While I do appreciate your comments, I'm sincerely hoping someone will
post an exhaustive list.

Suresh, thanks for your input - I do have a fairly good idea of how to
optimize a website and get good listings. This is more of an academic
excercise than an effort to get a number 1 ranking at Yahoo! and
Google.

RobertSkelton - If there is a list there, then summarizing it for me
with additional information should bring an easy $35... no?

Thanks again,
eguru

eguru - I am not a paid supporter of WebMasterWorld, so I haven't
actually seen the list. If you would be happy with that list of the
hundred factors, without any commentary (I can't just copy and paste
his article), I'll sign up as a paid supporter and answer your
question.

robertskelton -

It would be preferable to get a uniwue viewpoint on this. Maybe the
question can be opened up to other answer professionals who could
contribute instead.

Thanks,
eguru