Search Engines: a Definition

First Things First…What are search engines?

Of course, the first thing you must understand even if you think you alrleady understand is the definition of what a search engine is. A search engine is a compilation of databases of web page files that are automatically put together by a machine. But what exactly does this mean?

That somebody else is already doing half the work for you. 

These databases hold the information you are looking for and have been assembled in such a way that when you search for something, they look for key words and are able to provide you with what they believe to be the closest option to what you’re searching for. 

Huh? 

Key words are indexed and filed so that they are easily recognized within each search. These engines try to keep updated so that the results you get are the most recent. If you look closely, after you search, you get your results and they are divided by tabs. One includes everything that is found, another tab holds images, another videos. When it does this, it allows you to distinguish between what is new and what has been there for a while. 

Easy, huh?

Undoubtedly search engines are great because they, well, search a large portion of the web and they’re obviously the best method that exist today to search the web, but they also have their disadvantages. Bummer! Because of the vast amount of information that is out there, you have to be extremely meticulous about how you key in your searches because you will get hundreds of hits since these engines are looking for keywords. This is when we run into the trying to determine which hit is the best one and well, that can be rather time consuming.

Another thing that you must knwo is that there are two different types of search engines: The individual which compile their own searchable databases on the web (explanation will follow) and the Metasearchers which do not compile databases but instead search the databases of multiple sets of individual engines simultaneously (will follow).