Using Search Engines

"Search engines" are subject databases that are compiled by computer programs called "spiders" or "crawlers" that roam the Internet and index words found on the web pages of selected servers. This information is downloaded to large servers and indexed by word, image, and other access points. Users connect to the database, enter keywords, and view results as hyperlinks.

Search engines vary as to:

• size (the total number of web pages indexed)
• update frequency
• types of search features (Boolean, relevancy ranking, etc.)
• how results are displayed

There are thousands of search engines.