Week 4 - Search Engine Questions

What is a search engine?

A search engine is a searchable online database of internet resources. It has several components: search engine software, spider software, an index (database), and a relevancy algorithm (rules for ranking). The search engine software consists of a server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing Internet Web pages, storing the results and returning lists of pages to match user queries. The spidering software constantly crawls the Web collecting Web page data for the index. The index is a database for storing the data. The relevancy algorithm determines how to rank queries. Examples of major search engines are Google, AOL, MSN and Lycos, etc.. Examples of major directories are Yahoo!, LookSmart and ODP.

(http://www.virtechseo.com/seoglossary.htm)

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?

Pages listed are ones which contain text matching the search term. These are sorted in some kind of relevance order, usually based on the number of times the search terms appear, and whether they're in a title or header.

(http://hayleyshollers.blogspot.com/)

Who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?

To get a top spot on the search engine your site must be "optimised" for the search engine. Optimization used to mean adding "keyword metatags" to your site header.

This practice is virtually ignored by most search engines. You now need to use sentences to describe what the page is about. A picture is worth 1000 words, but of the search engine cannot see your picture, then it is not worth a thing.

Optimising your website using search engine optimization means that you must make your website easily navigable by humans, so that humans can find what they are looking for quickly. The search engine algorithms, or programs, are built to promote sites that do this, and they do this using search engine rules.

(http://www.computerengineering.ca/getting_started_with_web_hosting/)

What are some of your favourite search engines? Why do you like one more than others?

I use Google exclusivly. No other reason than it is my homepage.

Can you find some current news stories about search engines?

Google buys Youtube!