WEB SEARCH ENGINE

By: Abd Rashid Bin Hj Shafie

Penyelaras Bestari
SMK Gunung Rapat, Ipoh
A Web search engine is a search engine designed to search for information on the World
Wide Web (WWW). Information may consist of web pages, images, information and
other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in news books,
databases, or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by hman
editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mi!tre of algorithmic and hman
inpt. "he e!amples of web search engines are#
$. Ask %eeves
&. 'oogle
(. )ycos
*. Infoseek
+. ,ahoo- Search
.. /owerset (&001)
Timeline
2ote# 3)anch3 refers only to web
availability of original crawl4based
web search engine reslts. 5or fll4list# )ist of search engines
Year Engine Event
$66( Aliweb )anch
$66*
Web7rawler )anch
Infoseek )anch
)ycos )anch
$66+
Alta8ista )anch (part of 9:7)
;agellan )anch ("he ;c<inley 'rop)
:!cite )anch
SA/= )anch
$66.
9ogpile )anch
Inktomi 5onded
>ot?ot 5onded
Ask %eeves 5onded
$66@
2orthern )ight )anch
,ande! )anch
$661 'oogle )anch
$666
AlltheWeb )anch
'enie<nows 5onded
2aver )anch
"eoma 5onded
8ivisimo 5onded
&000 ?aid 5onded
&00( Info.com )anch
&00*
,ahoo- Search 5inal lanch
A6.com )anch
&00+
;S2 Search 5inal lanch
Ask.com )anch
'oodSearch )anch
&00.
wikiseek 5onded
Aaero 5onded
Ask.com )anch
)ive Search )anch
7ha7ha ?eta )anch
'rBi.com ?eta )anch
&00@
wikiseek )anched
Wikia Search )anched
&001
/owerset )anched
8iewCi )anched
7il )anched
?oogami )anched
HOW WEB SEARCH ENGINES WORK
A search engine operates, in the following order
$. Web crawling
&. Inde!ing
(. Searching
Web search engines work by storing information abot many web pages, which they
retrieve from the WWW itself. "hese pages are retrieved by a Web crawler (sometimes
also known as a spider) D an atomated Web browser which follows every link it sees.
:!clsions can be made by the se of robots.t!t. "he contents of each page are then
analyCed to determine how it shold be inde!ed (for e!ample, words are e!tracted from
the titles, headings, or special fields called meta tags). 9ata abot web pages are stored in
an inde! database for se in later Eeries. Some search engines, sch as 'oogle, store all
or part of the sorce page (referred to as a cache) as well as information abot the web
pages, whereas others, sch as Alta8ista, store every word of every page they find. "his
cached page always holds the actal search te!t since it is the one that was actally
inde!ed, so it can be very sefl when the content of the crrent page has been pdated
and the search terms are no longer in it. "his problem might be considered to be a mild
form of linkrot, and 'oogleFs handling of it increases sability by satisfying ser
e!pectations that the search terms will be on the retrned webpage. "his satisfies the
principle of least astonishment since the ser normally e!pects the search terms to be on
the retrned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very sefl,
even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available
elsewhere.
When a ser enters a Eery into a search engine (typically by sing key words), the
engine e!amines its inde! and provides a listing of best4matching web pages according to
its criteria, sally with a short smmary containing the docmentFs title and sometimes
parts of the te!t. ;ost search engines spport the se of the boolean operators A29, =G
and 2=" to frther specify the search Eery. Some search engines provide an advanced
featre called pro!imity search which allows sers to define the distance between
keywords.
"he seflness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the result set it gives back.
While there may be millions of webpages that inclde a particlar word or phrase, some
pages may be more relevant, poplar, or athoritative than others. ;ost search engines
employ methods to rank the reslts to provide the 3best3 reslts first. >ow a search
engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the reslts shold be
shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. "he methods also change over time
as Internet sage changes and new techniEes evolve.
;ost Web search engines are commercial ventres spported by advertising revene and,
as a reslt, some employ the practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their
listings ranked higher in search reslts. "hose search engines which do not accept money
for their search engine reslts make money by rnning search related ads alongside the
reglar search engine reslts. "he search engines make money every time someone clicks
on one of these ads.
Gevene in the web search portals indstry is proBected to grow in &001 by $(.* percent,
with broadband connections e!pected to rise by $+.$ percent. ?etween &001 and &0$&,
indstry revene is proBected to rise by +. percent as Internet penetration still has some
way to go to reach fll satration in American hoseholds. 5rthermore, broadband
services are proBected to accont for an ever increasing share