Search Engine
Search Engine
A system for finding information on the internet by searching web pages using keywords.
In Simple Terms
A search engine is a system that finds the pages you're looking for among countless web pages on the internet, just by typing in a few keywords. Whenever you use that little search box on your smartphone or computer to look something up, a search engine is working behind the scenes. It automatically gathers and organizes information from websites all over the world, so when you type in a word, it can instantly find the most relevant pages and display them on your screen.
Behind the Name
"Search Engine" is a straightforward pairing of two words: "search" means to look for something, and "engine" means a device or mechanism. Put together, the term carries the sense of a reliable tool that helps you search out the information you're looking for across the vast world of the internet.
Take a Closer Look!
A search engine is a system that searches through the enormous number of web pages on the internet and displays the ones related to the keywords a user enters. When you type what you want to look up into a web browser's search box, it instantly shows you a list of relevant pages.
Simply put, a search engine does two big jobs.
The first is using automated programs called crawlers to travel across web pages all over the world and gather information. The information collected is organized and stored in a database, so it can be pulled up quickly whenever we search.
The second job is ranking the pages by how useful they are for the words we typed in, then displaying them on the screen based on its own set of rules. These ranking rules are called an algorithm, and pages with newer, more accurate information or that are viewed by lots of people tend to rank higher. The reason we can find exactly what we're looking for on the internet without getting lost is that a search engine is always working behind the scenes.