What is a Search Engine?
A Search Engine is an Internet-based tool that searches an index of documents, Web sites and social networks for a particular term, phrase or text specified by the user. The term is commonly used to refer to large web-based search engines that search through billions of pages on the Internet.
A server (computer) or a collection of servers is dedicated to indexing Internet web pages, storing the results in a giant database and returning lists of pages that match particularly searched queries. The indexes are normally and automatically generated using search engine "spiders" or "crawlers".
Common Search Engine Characteristics
- Spider or Crawler
- Indexer
- Database
- Algorithm
- Strive to produce "better", more relevant search results
How do Search Engines Work?
Search Engines have what they call "spiders" or "crawlers". These creatures crawl the Internet in pursuit of information (in the form of websites, documents, social updates etc) that march a user generated search query. In other words, these "crawlers" do their best to find you, the searcher, the most relevant information to what you are searching for. They typically do this by following hyperlinks from websites that are already in the search engine's database.
The process takes place as follows:
1. The search engine indexes the content (text, code) in web documents by adding it to their databases and then, periodically updating this content.
2. The search engine searches its own database when a user enters in a search term to find related content.
3. The search engine ranks the resulting documents using a complex algorithm (mathematical formula) by assigning various weights and ranking factors.
4. The user then sees nicely organized results.
