Fundamentals of Search Engines
Education for Beginners
What Search Engines Are, and How to Use Them
Welcome to search engine education for beginners! More advanced surfers may want to go to our search engine education for intermediate students.
What are Search Engines?
Search engines are themselves web sites whose primary purpose is to enable people to find information on the web. These vital devices usually take on the formidable task of indexing the entire World Wide Web (WWW). In this endeavor, some search engines build a catalog that contains over 100 million web pages!
How to Use Search Engines
Each engine's central web page provides a small box into which the web surfer can type key words or phrases to describe what they are looking for. We'll see examples in a minute. Once the keywords are typed in, the surfer usually clicks a "search" or "seek" button next to the search box, initiating the search engine's exploration of its entire, massive database to find web sites most relevant to the search phrase. The results are then ranked and listed in order, from most relevant to least relevant, usually within a few seconds. Imagine searching 100 million web pages in a few seconds! The title of each matching web site is presented as a link which the surfer can click to visit that site. A brief description of the site usually follows each title link.
Below is a search box for a popular search engine called Lycos. Try typing in a search phrase for something that interests you, whether it be dog adoptions, martial arts or internet books for seniors. The more specific your search phrase (consider adding the name of your city or town, for example), the more relevant your matches will be. Once you have typed in your phrase, click the "Go" button, and a new window will open with your search results. Visit a site that interests you if you want to, by clicking on a title link. When you are finished playing, click the close box (the X in the very top right corner of the window) to close the results window and return to this page.
