Glossary: search engine

A search engine is a database of Web pages constructed by a software program which automatically scans the Web looking for new pages and new sites. The program indexes the pages it finds using proprietary rules which are unique to each engine; its goal is to create what it considers to be the most useful database for its users.

This is different than a directory, which is built by humans laboriously entering information by hand. Advocates of directories claim they're superior because a trained human who looks at your site can better understand it than a software program. Advocates of search engines claim they're superior because they can far more rapidly index far more sites than anything maintained by hand. We're neutral in this dispute, ;-).

Surfers like you use the thing by entering search terms into the engine's Web page. The engine blazes through its database, and lists the Web pages which it believes are the best matches for your search.

There used to be a lot of search engines. Little by little they've nearly all died, leaving Google in pretty much sole possession of the field. Google's victory happened in part because it's always provided search results which many users consider superior to the others. But it also came through the business incompetence (read: greed) of the other players, who all opted to allow listers to buy "premium" listings for cash. These paid-for-listings tended to take over the coveted top slots in users' search results, the problem being that unpaid listings were often closer to what the user was looking for. Savvy Web surfers ditched the greedy engines for Google en mass.

If you're working on a Web site, you'll want to list it with Google. It's possible that Google will find you itself by following someone's link to your site. To be sure, though, you'll want to explicitly inform Google of your existence yourself. See our short article "List your site with the search engines and directories" for simple instructions.