Types of Search Engines
9th May 2006
People who conduct their research using the Internet almost always open a search engine to find the websites that will provide them with the information they need. Some people also use these search engines to find products that they wanted to buy. This is why the creators of websites endeavor to have their work listed in such search engines.
Usually, a website, which link is placed at the top of the results of an engine search, receives a lot of traffic. The website listed at the top of the search result page enjoys the distinction of being the “best” site. Although such is not always the case. The website found at the top simply utilized search engine optimization. While a website that does not make it in the results list was probably created without taking into account how search engines work.
A search engine optimization simply makes sure that the created web pages can be readily accessed by the search engines. The web pages are assembled in such a way that the chances of them being located by search engines are high. There are techniques used to achieve such desired goal. But before techniques are wielded, there must be a basic knowledge about search engines.
A background about search engines lays the groundwork for search engine optimization. Today, there are two known distinct types of search engines: “crawler-based search engines” and “human-powered directories”.
The crawler-based search engine (such as the Google) automatically produces a listing of websites after a person hits the “search command”. Oftentimes, such listing sometimes appears in less than a seconds. This type of search engine has three main components: the crawler, the index, and the search engine software.
The crawler, which is also called the spider, accesses a web page, determine its contents and investigate the links found on this one particular web page. The index, which is sometimes referred to as the catalog, stores a copy of each web page found by the crawler. The search engine software is the one responsible for sifting through the index and for retrieving the web pages that matches the search criteria. The way that crawler-based search engines operate implies that changes in the website affect how the site will be listed.
The human-powered directory (such as the Open Directory) has listings that were assembled by humans. Instead of crawlers, search matches will be based on the short descriptions submitted by the owners, editors, or creators of a website. With this type of search engine, a website with excellent content may get reviewed without a fee. And any changes made in the website will have no effect on the listing in the directory.
There is a third type of search engine that combines the features of the first two types. This third type is referred to as hybrid search engine. One example is the MSN Search. For more popular searches, the listing is based on human-powered results. Whereas for odd searches, the listing utilizes the crawler-based technology.