Search Engine

It is important to understand how search engines work.

Search engines can help your business reach potential customers.

 
  • What is a search engine?

A search engine is a piece of software on the Internet. 

Which displays the best result on its SERP page by searching the information in its database according to the query suggested by its user. 

The main function of a search engine is to display results that best match the information users are trying to find.

A user generally searches the Internet for content using specific keywords in a search engine.

When a search engine receives a query, it creates a list of results matching the query and ranks those results based on its ranking algorithms, and publishes them on the SERP page.

Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to improve the experience of their users.

The main purpose of a search engine is to understand how searchers do their searches and how they get their best answers and prioritize high-quality pages based on that.

There are many types of search engines available on the internet these days that are gaining a good share of users based on their capabilities and features.

 
  • How do search engines work?

As the years have gone by, search engines have become more complex, yet search engines follow their basic principles.

The job of a search engine is to crawl and index all the data on a website so that when you search for something, it can rank and present a set of results that match your search.

Here is how search engines do this.

 

1. Crawl

Crawl is also known as web crawl or spider.

Crawlers are programs that continuously search the Internet to find new sites and identify links to them.

Crawler analyzes and indexes every page of a website.

Each part of a web page is stored by a crawler called a cache.

We can add a file called robots.txt to the website to tell the crawler which pages of the website to analyze and index and which pages not to index.

 

2. Index

The data that is collected by Crawler is analyzed and stored in an index so that search engines can quickly find the information.

This index works just like the index found in our school books but covers more detailed and precise terms.

This search engine index includes an entry for every term on every indexed web page.

 

3. Search

When you enter your search query into a search engine, the search engine first translates your query terms into its index terms.

This process of a search engine is done through several techniques including machine learning.

After translating the words through the search engine, it provides an output based on the query that identifies the important parts of your query and adds misspellings and ‘synonyms’.

The search engine then again advises the index to find web pages that match the found query.

 

4. Rank

The last in a search engine’s work is to rank a web page. 

A search engine claims that it will give you the best answer to your query by using search algorithms.

Based on that, a search engine’s SERP page is ranked by observing a set of web pages that match the query.

Search engines consider several factors to rank search results.

Which may include factors like the source, source volume, links, load speed, etc.

From this, it can be said that the main objective of a search engine is to provide the most relevant results to the searchers.

Every search engine continues to provide tips on how to improve a website’s web page ranking. The algorithms of the top search engines currently in use are well-secured and are constantly changing to prevent abuse. You can ensure that by following the practices of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

 
  • How do search engines rank results?

As we have seen above, the main work of a search engine is to show searchers relevant web pages based on their queries.

There are millions of websites on the Internet and millions of web pages on those websites. 

Then we have the question that how search engines will be giving ranking to the page in so many web pages. The answer to our question is the search algorithms of the search engine.

Search algorithms are developed by search engines to provide the searcher with the best answers to their queries.

When we enter a query on a search engine, we see millions of web pages, this is where the work of search algorithms begins.

Search algorithms consider several factors to rank any web page, and show you on the SERP page by giving the top rank to the web page it thinks you will click on.

So here let us study some of the factors involved in this.

 

1. Use of keywords

The search results displayed by the search engine are always found to match certain terms of your query.

Search engines use most keywords to rank web pages.

Such keywords are defined based on the query entered by the searcher.

Search engines give a higher ranking to web pages on which the keyword entered in the search query is in a prominent position. Such places include the page title and sometimes the entire page.

 

2. Page Content

Another important factor considered by search engines to rank a page is the content of that page.

Search engines analyze the length of a web page, its width, and the information it provides in-depth.

Then a web page is ranked after studying the loading time of the web page, a graphic of the web page, etc.

But yes the factor called Page Domain Authority does not have any importance in this.

 

3. Backlinks

Backlinks are links that point the way from one website to another website.

Backlinks are usually the authority factor of any website.

Search engines take into account how many other sites link to a website’s page and rank the page based on that.

It should not be forgotten that search engines consider not only the number of backlinks but also the quality of the backlinks.

 

4. User Information

Most search engines use some of your personal information to show you accurate results.

Such information is like the history and location of the searches you have made, the history of websites you have opened, etc.

Search engines use this information to provide results that are uniquely relevant to you.

So these factors are the main ones keeping in mind the search engine to rank any web page. Whenever a website or webpage is created by a website owner, he necessarily considers these factors.

 
  • Popular search engine list

Search technology has undergone many changes since the first search engine was developed in 1989. 

Along with it, many other types of search engines have also been developed.

These search engines have evolved over time.

Here is a list of some of the most popular search engines today.

Archie

is considered to be the first search engine ever developed and was used to search FTP files.

Veronica

is considered to be the first text-based search engine.

Currently, the most popular search engine with the highest user share is Google.

Other popular search engines are followed by Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, and DuckDuckGo respectively.

  Search engine chart  

1. Google

We all know that the popularity of Google needs no introduction.

Today it is not limited to just a search engine but has become a synonym for searching.

Google is the world’s largest and most popular search engine today.

Google is the world’s top search engine with a 92.31% share of the global search engine market.

Google has distinguished itself among users since the 90s due to its clean look and backlink-based ranking system.

Nowadays Google is more systematic than before, easy to use, correct results, and more updated with other special agreements, and maintains its dominance among users.

 

2. Bing

Bing is the second most popular search engine in the world.

It currently holds 2.61% of the global search engine market share.

The Bing search engine was launched in 2009 and is a stark contrast to Google.

When Bing launched, it featured colorful photography on its homepage, which stood out from Google’s simple homepage.

This boosted Bing’s popularity and even today it features different color photography on its homepage.

 

3. Yahoo

As for Yahoo, it is not only a search engine but also a web portal, a news site.

Currently, Yahoo has a market share of 1.64% in the global search engine market.

Yahoo was founded in 1994 and sold to Verizon in 2017 for $4.48 billion.

 

4. Baidu

Baidu is the second most popular search engine after Yahoo.

Baidu is a Chinese search engine company and most of its users are found in China.

Baidu currently holds a 1.48% share of the global search engine market.

Like Google, Baidu also started as a search engine and today is China’s largest tech company.

 

5.DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a private search engine and has been specially designed with user privacy in mind.

DuckDuckGo currently has a global market share of 0.58%.

DuckDuckGo ranks first when it comes to user privacy while using search engines.

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