A search engine or search service is a program designed to help find information stored on a computer system such as the World Wide Web, inside a corporate or proprietary network or a personal computer. The search engine allows one to ask for content meeting specific criteria (typically those containing a given word or phrase) and retrieves a list of references that match those criteria. Search engines use regularly updated indexes to operate quickly and efficiently. Without further qualification, search engine usually refers to a Web search engine, which searches for information on the public Web. Other kinds of search engine are enterprise search engines, which search on intranets, personal search engines, which search individual personal computers, and mobile search engines. However, while different selection and relevance criteria may apply in different environments, the user will probably perceive little difference between operations in these. Some search engines also mine data available in newsgroups, large databases, or open directories like DMOZ.org. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically. Most web sites which call themselves search engines are actually front ends to search engines owned by other companies.

History

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The very first tool used for searching on the Internet was Archie. (The name stands for "archive" without the "v", not the character from the 'Archie' comic book series). It was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal. The program downloaded the directory listings of all the files located on public anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, creating a searchable database of filenames.

While Archie indexed computer files, Gopher indexed plain text documents. Gopher was created in 1991 by Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota. (The program was named after the school's mascot). Because these were text files, most of the Gopher sites became Web sites after the creation of the World Wide Web.

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Search Engines - Twitter Search

.. spending almost all day optimizing my websites for Search Engines, have done now my main pages. Tomorrow doing all the portfolio-pages ..
gonzodesign_ (Jan Rajtoral) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:33:39 -0000
.. spending almost all day optimizing my websites for Search Engines, have done now my main pages. Tomorrow doing all the portfolio-pages ..
Search engines changing how they perceive your website, You need to change with them or lose your online presence http://bit.ly/3osZkN
Everydayhusslin (Terri Thomas) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:32:15 -0000
Search engines changing how they perceive your website, You need to change with them or lose your online presence http://bit.ly/3osZkN
The best blog search engines. Click link and scroll down, lower left: http://TheNationalNetworkerWeblog.blogspot.com #TNNW
PennyNPY (Penny Ng) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:30:54 -0000
The best blog search engines. Click link and scroll down, lower left: http://TheNationalNetworkerWeblog.blogspot.com #TNNW
RT @nishachittal: RT @melaniephung: Facebook is #7 traffic referrer to washingtonpost.com (incl. search engines) #socialmediaday
josh_greene (josh_greene) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:29:53 -0000
RT @nishachittal: RT @melaniephung: Facebook is #7 traffic referrer to washingtonpost.com (incl. search engines) #socialmediaday
News: Preparing OER for Search Engines http://bit.ly/1zSdhG
openednews (Open Education News) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:22:32 -0000
News: Preparing OER for Search Engines http://bit.ly/1zSdhG
@mrknowitall I barely remember dogpile. Weren't they the ones that would run their search on ALL search engines then merge the results?
althefierce (Travis Fischer) Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:16:49 -0000
@mrknowitall I barely remember dogpile. Weren't they the ones that would run their search on ALL search engines then merge the results?

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