How does Google use HTML tags to enhance the search engine?

Check out http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/pan.html http://www.springerlink.com/content/l22811484243r261/

Some time spent on scholar.google.com might help you find what you are looking for

You can also try searching the 'Computer Science' section of arXiv: http://arxiv.org for "search engine" and the various terms that others have suggested.

It contains many academic papers, all freely available... hopefully some of them will be relevant to your research. (Of course the caveat of validating any paper's content applies.)

To keep it painfully simple. Make your information architecture logical. If the most important elements for user comprehension are highlighted with headings and grouped logically, then the document is easier to interpret using information processing algorithms. Magically, it will also be easier for users to interpret. Remember the search engine algorithms were written by people trying to interpret language.

The Basic Process is: Write well structured HTML - using header tags to indicate the most critical elements on the page. Use logical tags based on the structure of your information. Lists for lists, headers for major topics.

Supply relevant alt tags and names for any visual elements, and then use simple css to arrange these elements.

If the site works well for users and contains relevant information, you don't risk becoming a black listed spammer, and search engine algorithms will favor your page.

I really enjoyed the book Transcending CSS for a clean explanation of properly structured HTML.

I suggest trying Google scholar as one of your avenues when looking for academic articles

semantic search

I found it interesting that - with no meta keywords nor description provided - in a scenatio like this:

<p>Some introduction</p>
<h1>headline 1</h1>
<p>text for section one</p>

Always the "text for section one" is shown on the search result page.