A few days into your online life and you will hear the word Search Engine. So what are they, exactly?In a lighter vein, they are not mechanical engines as we know them from the 'Real World'. Instead, these power/drive knowledge or online data, hence the world Engine. A very basic explanation of a Search Engine is to think of them as an online data base containing text, pix and video that can be accessed by any Net surfer. The data (content) rests on servers (giant computers) that respond to the needs of each individual surfer. But since the data is vast, there is a way to go about retrieving the right information. The trick is to write a key word which will then trigger off a "Search" of the data base. Hence, the name Search Engine.
Eg: If you wanna know how many owls are left in the world, you may need to type in the search box, the word Owl + Population. The search box is provided on the front page of every Search Engine.
There are 2 elements to Search. Some one needs to store data and some needs to retrieve it. Both functions are done not by humans but by computer programs. The program that searches is referred to as a crawler,
robot, worm, or spider. This information is then Indexed. The Search Results that are revealed are ranked by importance/relevance in most cases.But not all data is indexed or saved. Certain type of data - protected behind a firewall, or password protected or where thewebsite/blog has given a pre-set command stopping a spider to save the data - will not be found on Search Engines.
The world's most famous Search Engine is of course, Google. But it is not the only Search Engine. Click here to find out the others.
