Search Engines Dissected
Almost everything is within our reach through the vast information found in the internet. And the main access to this virtually limitless information is through a Search Engine. Now what do we know about Search Engines? To start with, Search Engines are websites or software designed to provide information by gathering data on the Internet. They are the virtual encyclopaedias, directories, indexes, and such all rolled into one. By the definition itself, it is a very useful tool for searchers and webmasters alike. For the searchers, they depend on these search engines to give them accurate results of their searches. The webmasters, on the other hand, they depend on this to route traffic to their sites, which potentially increases their possibility in generating business either by direct selling or through other website advertising on their sites, which are now probably the most inexpensive and effective marketing mediums.
The web search tools or services originally began with two kinds; these were the Directories and Engines. The Directories or Search Directories were human powered, which meant that the websites included in the directory’s database were handpicked and classified according to the search by humans and is therefore, dependent on humans for its entries or listings. The Engines or Search Engines, on the other hand, are robots or crawlers; they read or “crawl” or “spider” through the web for information and collect the information and deposit it in a large database. These crawlers or spiders regularly return to the site to look for changes, and they update the database on these changes.
Today most of the web search engines are Hybrid Engines, which mean they are a mix of both kind, they both have human-powered listings as well as crawler-based results.
Now we also have Metasearch engines; are search engines searching through the database of other various search engines and search directories simultaneously, trying to select from all of them the most relevant results or hits, instead of searching the individual websites.
Another is also what we call Specialized Search Engine, which only focuses on one type of topic of information, whether in search for files, images, music, video, online references, business, shopping, news, blogs, and more.
There is also a Selection-based Search Engine, in which the query is done through the mouse instead of the traditional launching of a browser and going through a search engine, typing or pasting the query, viewing the results, and clicking the hyperlink that suits the searcher.
And we also have Desktop Search Engines or Search Tools where the searcher uses the search engine to search his own computer for his own files or file content rather than searching the internet.
Below are some of the well known search engines of today:
Yahoo: www.yahoo.com
- It was dubbed as the mother of the search directories and was originally a Search Directory that was mainly powered by humans, now it has evolved to a Hybrid Engine as most search engines usually are.
Google: www.google.com
- Is a very popular crawler-based search engine which was voted several times as the Most Outstanding Search Engine; a top choice for searchers and masters alike; a recommended first stop if not one-stop shop in your web hunts.
Dogpile: www.dogpile.com
- A metasearch engine that searches through the database of Google, Yahoo, bing (www.bing.com), and Ask (www.ask.com)
eBay!: www.ebay.com
- A popular specialized search engine which specializes in auctions: selling, and bidding for products
YouTube: www.youtube.com
- Another popular specialized search engine concentrating on TV and video.
Microsoft Word Smart Tag
- A selection-based search engine found in the later versions of Microsoft Word; the application recognizes certain types of information in the document such as dates, names, and places and converts it into a hyperlink enabling the user to click on the information which either prompts a browser to be launched or shows a selection of possible actions.
Windows Desktop Search
- A desktop search engine that is already built-in or part of Windows XP and Server 2003 and is named as Windows Search in Windows Vista, which searches the files on the searchers on computer.
The usage of the search engine ultimately depends on the searcher’s preference which is mainly determined through the accuracy of the hits of the searches in which the webmaster strongly depends on for his business traffic.
