Search Engines

A search engine is a Web robot or spider that follows links on the Web and indexes the various Web sites and pages that it comes across. Digital copies of the pages are stored in a database. The search engine then allows users to look for information in this database using a simple or advanced search query.

Using a search engine is simple. The search engine provides a dialog box into which the user enters a query. A search query is a keyword, or string of keywords, that the engine then uses to locate Web pages in its database.

One example of a search engine is Google. Here is the Google search page with a query for "puppies" entered into the dialog box.

Once the query has been entered, the user then clicks on the "Google Search" button, or hits the "Enter" key on the keyboard. Google will then produce a results page that links to the Web pages that include any mention of the word "puppies" from its database. Here is the Google results page for "puppies."