Search Engines (continued)

'Unlike web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input.' (Wikipedia)

There are three components to a search engine:

• Collection: ‘Robot’, ‘Spider’ or ‘Worm’ wanders, brings back resources, sorts, indexes and creates the database. Alternately, webmasters can contact search engine owners/operators to add their sites to the database.
• Database: when using a search engine, you are actually searching the database, not ‘the Internet’.
• Search Interface: this component is the interface between the end user and the database. Some search engines allow for complex strategy development with Boolean operators, phrase and proximity searching, and nesting. Others are simple keyword searches.

The main Search Engines are Google (www.google.com), Alta Vista (www.altavista.com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and Bing (www.bing.com)