Importance & How a Search Engine Works: The Ultimate Guide

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are all search engines. However, what is a search engine? How a Search Engine works? What exactly does a search engine do? What is the importance of Search Engines or what if search Engines were not in our life? These are all questions you might have if you’ve never used a search engine before.

A search engine is a software that processes user queries and returns relevant results. The general principle behind any search engine is simple: it processes words or phrases a user enters and searches through large amounts of data to find relevant results. There are many different types of search engines, each with its unique characteristics that set them apart from the rest. With so many search engines available online, it’s hard to keep track of all of them. In this blog post, we will cover what a search engine is and how a search engine works. Keep reading to learn more!

What is a Search Engine

A search engine is a web application that is designed to search out information from the World Wide Web according to the user’s query.

History of search engines

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin were students at Standford University, they created the first ever computerized search engine, in 1996. The first ever commercial search engine was called “Archie”, which was developed by Alan Emtage in 1990.

Importance of Search Engine

Now let’s talk about the importance of search engines: If there was no search engine in our lives, how would our life go on? I’ll explain you in simple and easy words.

If search engines did not exist, retrieving the information would be a much more difficult process. For example, if someone wanted to know the price of a Lamborghini, they would have to memorize the URL of each website related to Lamborghinis and type it into their web browser. This would be considerably more time-consuming and difficult than using a search engine.

How does a Search Engine work?

If you search on Search Engines n Daily Basis then the question ‘How does a search engine work must be blown in your mind. I am going to solve this mind-blowing question in easy and simple words. 

Many people think that search engines work in this way: “Whenever we type anything for example T-shirts for boys, then the search engines go on different websites and see where is the T-shirt for boys. Then he comes back and provides us results based on our searched queries”.

But this is completely untrue, In fact, before we type anything on Google (Talking about every search engine), it had already played an important role. 

Now we are going to discuss all 3 roles search engines perform before supplying any result. 

1. Crawling
2. Indexer
3. Ranking Algorithm

Crawling and Indexing are the two most important roles a search engine must do to give any result.

What is a Search Engine Crawler/Spider?

Search Engines Crawler also known as Spider goes to every single page of every website and crawls all the data present on the site. It crawls everything and then it saves all the data into Google’s (Search Engines) Local Server (Search Engine’s Hard Disk). 

What is a Search Engine Indexer?

After Search Engines Crawler (or we can call it Search Engine Spider) crawls all the data into its Local Server, then Search Engine’s Indexers Indexes all the data kept by Crawlers into the Local Hard Disk into different categories and sub-categories. Indexers keep relevant data in one category and other relevant data in another category.

For example, It will keep T-shirts in another category and Pants in another category, and the list goes on.

So in easy words, the work of an indexer is to categorize the data crawled by Search Engine Spiders.

What is Ranking Algorithm

After the indexer categorizes the data into many categories, It’s time to rank websites according to the data presented on their sites.

Now Google’s Ranking Algorithms rank websites according to their SEO-optimized content and it shows us top results on SERP.

Now, what is SERP?

What is SERP

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page.

Real-Life Example of How a Search Engine Works

Till Here you have understood how a search engine provides any result. But to clarify it with a better example will be more good to understand.

Suppose, I own a library/bookstore. After some days I purchased many books for my library. My all books came on a truck. And In my library, I have 3 workers.

I called Worker 1 (Crawler/Spider) and ordered him to take out all the books from the truck. So he took all the books and kept them in my Library Hall (Search Engine’s Local Server). So my first worker acted as a Search Engine’s Crawler because he took (crawled) all the books (data) and kept them in my library hall (local server).

Now I called my 2nd Worker (Indexer) and summoned him to go and put all the books category-wise on the shelf. So he kept English Books in one category and Islamiat Books in another category. So my second worker behaved like a Search Engine Indexer because he maintain my books category-wise. 

In Last my 3rd Worker will act as the Ranking Algorithm. But how? Let’s read how. So whenever any reader (user) will come to my library or bookshop and will order any book. So my 3rd Worker will go fast and bring that particular book from the category in which 2nd Worker (Indexer) has kept.

So my 3rd worker acted like a Search Engine Ranking Algorithm.

Examples of Top Search Engines

• Google

Google has more than 2.5 trillion searches each year around the globe.

• Yahoo

Yahoo has approximately 200+ Million users Worldwide today

• Bing

Microsoft owns Bing and it is presented on more than 1.5 Million Devices

• Baidu

Popular in China, Baidu holds approximately 85% of China’s Market Share

• Yandex

Yandex is a Russian Search Engine. Approximately 50% of Russia uses Yandex

• DuckDuck GO

People who have a problem with privacy use this Search Engine.

Conclusion

Search engines are web applications that are designed to search out information from the World Wide Web according to the user’s query. They are important because they make retrieving information much easier and faster. Search engines work by crawling, indexing, and ranking websites according to a number of factors.