An Overview of Search Engines

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An Overview of Search Engines

Search engines are used all over the world, everyday, by millions of people. These devices are websites that collect and compile data from the internet so that other web pages, links, and different information can be found more easily. There are an unfathomable number of search engines on the internet. Some popular ones include Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, Infoseek, Lycos, Alta Vista, Excite, MSN Search and Hotbot. With so many websites to choose from, it makes it hard to decide which search engine is the best fit for your task at hand.

Each search engine gathers their listings in fundamentally two different ways. One system uses a crawler-based search engine that creates their listings automatically. In order to operate, the crawler-based search engine consists of three major elements; spider, index, and search engine software. The first element, spider, which is also called the crawler, is used to visit the web page, read it, and then follow the links to other pages within the site. When someone refers to a site as being “spidered” or “crawled”, this is what that means. In case of change in a web site, the spider returns frequently to look for these changes that may have occurred. The second part of the search engine is known as the index, which is basically a storage unit containing a copy of every web page that the spider had found. When the webpage ever changes, the index will be updated with the new information that had been found. In some cases when a website had made changes, the index may not store the new changes as fast as the spider did. In this case, until the information is updated, this web site is unable to access those searching with the search e...

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...ing and the advances that are being made day by day, search engines, along with many other materials, will only continue to improve. The future holds a lot for the people, and computers are doing wonders in our lifetime. Search Engines are the first place computer users start in order to find a specific topic they are looking for, and the information that is found by these search engines will only develop more and amplify our knowledge.

Works Cited

Search Engine Promotion Solutions. Retrieved November 22nd, 2004, from http://www.registereverywhere.com/engines1.php?a

Search Engines on the Web. Retrieved November 22nd, 2004, from http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&q=define:Search+Engines

The Top 10 Search Engines According to the Top 10 Search Engines. Retrieved November 28th, 2004, from http://www.kottke.org/02/06/top-ten-search-engines

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