INTRODUCTION

WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES?

Search engines are huge databases of web page files that have been assembled automatically by machine.

There are two types of search engines:

1. Individual.  Individual search engines compile their own searchable databases on the web.
   
   
2. Meta.   Metasearchers do not compile databases. Instead, they search the databases of multiple sets of individual engines simultaneously

Internet users are familiar with search engines which allow them to seek out information via the web.  Web browsers are a type of search engine that allow a user to seek out information via the web.

What remains invisible and is less commononly understood is how the web browser is able to provide their current data to users. 

• When a user queries a web browser, the search engine checks their database and returns results previously indexed.

Web browsers rely on their companion programs, spiders to locate sites and retrieve indexable terms for its database.  Spider software is often referred to by several different terms: software robots, spider robot, bots, spiderbots, web crawlers, and indexing bot to name a few.