What is a search engine?

Search engines are tools used to find data based on specific inputs, by entering words (keywords) or phrases to find web pages that match these terms.

Not every web search engine works in the same way, but most search engines are crawler-based, that is, they actively search for pages on the Internet and add them to the index. Simply put, a search engine is a tool used to quickly find information from the index and display the results on the page.

Search engine is the main method of browsing the web. Different search engine means different searching for specific information. Each search engine usually contains advanced search options, which can be used to better focus the search and help users find what they need.

Although they are often used interchangeably, web search engines are different from web directories and web browsers.

How search engines work

Search engines automatically create website lists by using software, which is calledspiders (Spider) orspiderbots(Spider crawler), to "crawl" web pages. They track links from the site to other pages and index information in the process.

The crawler robot of the search engine can not only jump from one link to the next link, but also can check each site’srobots.txtFile to search the web.

This file contains: which pages search engines should search and view on the site, or which pages cannot be viewed. This is a way for webmasters to prevent search engines from indexing specific pages.

The spider robot will return to the page that has been crawled regularly to check for updates and changes, and will return all the content it finds to the search engine database.

Use search engine

Although every search engine is different, all these search engines have something in common:

Enter content in the search box, and then wait for the results to be displayed.

Some search engines also have a reverse search option, which allows you to browse the web using content other than text (for example, sound clips or image files).

In addition to a simple search box, many search engines also include other features: use special text commands or buttons to interact with the index, these commands or buttons can filter the results and delete items that are not related to the content you are looking for.

For example, there are many advanced Google search commands that can be used to get better and more accurate search results from Google.

Search engine example

There are many search engines, and which one you use depends on your needs: what you are looking for.

• Web search engines: usually multi-functional, can locate all kinds of data, from general web pages and news to help documents, online games, usually images, videos and files.
• Image search engine: search photos, drawings, clip art, wallpapers, etc.
• Video search engine: Find music videos, news videos, real-time streaming, etc.
• Find someone search engine: Use their name, address, phone number, email address, etc. to find people on the Internet.
• Mobile search engine: An optimized regular search engine that can search and display results on a smaller screen.
• Job search engine: Find job postings.
• Invisible Web search engine: A tool for browsing the invisible Web.

Other facts about search engines

No need to manually update the search engine to get the latest results in the search.

If you see the old content of some websites through the browser, but the latest news and content do not appear, you may need to clear the browser's cache.

Search engines will not search the entire Internet. A large part of the Internet cannot be crawled by search engines. These are collectively referred to as the invisible/deep network.

Search engines find web pages on their own, so bloggers don’t have to let search engines index their websites or add pages to the search database (however, actively wanting search engines to submit page URLs and site maps will speed up indexing and search rankings) . Moreover, for various reasons, search engines may not crawl certain web pages.

Some search engines use tools that allow webmasters to check the page and add it to the index so that others can find it,Google URL CheckerJust an example.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a practice that web content creators and competitors implement to achieve search rankings. Search engines use specific algorithms to rank web pages. Therefore, one of the goals of online content creation is to ensure that web pages accurately reflect the theme, which is usually achieved by using specific keywords and phrases.

Since search engines actually crawl the web to obtain data, the webmaster should make more inbound links so that the crawling tool can find the page faster and monitor its changes in real time.