There are variations as to how search engines perform searches but basically they do the same tasks - they search pages on the internet based on important words, they keep in their own database the information they find and where they find them, and they allow users like you and me to look for words or phrases in their index.
Search engines have special software robots called spiders that crawls or visits trillions of pages on the Internet on a regular basis. Some search engines do this every day, some others every week, and still others once a month. It depends on how many spiders they have constantly crawling. Another program called indexer reads web pages, indexes their information, and follows the site's links to other web pages.
Once the spiders have completed the task of finding information on web pages, the search engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. Search engines store not just the word and the web address where it was found, but it might also store how frequent the word appeared on the page. It also assign a weight for each entry depending on the location within the page the word is found. Different search engines have different algorithms in determining weight for words in its index. This is one of the reasons why you will get different results for the same word on different search engines.
Every time a user requests a search based on a word or phrase, the search engine searches its index for relevant information. The software then gives the result back to the searcher according to how relevant a web page is in relation to the search.
How important a search engine is? It has been said that the average person living today is exposed to as many different pieces of information in a single day as a person living 100 years ago would have seen in a year. With this information overload, it is next to impossible to remember and retrieve all these information. This is where a search engine comes in handy. Search engines allow users to quickly and easily find information on the web that is of value to them. With search engines, users are saved from the headache of sorting through irrelevant web pages to get the information they really need.
Web site owners would definitely want to bring their site to as many people as possible. This could not be achieved without them taking into consideration the power of the search engines to do just that. Search engines attract more targeted visitors to the website which could help site owners establish their online presence.
In an online world, a search engine is essential and it is one of the things people cannot live without.
by Arlene T. Cuares
The author finds Search Engines awesome and loves to talk about them.
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