Define Search Engine

What is search engine? 

 

Search engine is a program available through the internet  that searches documents and files for keywords and returns a list of the documents  where the keywords are found. At present, there are thousands of different search engines available on the Internet, each with their own abilities and features. The first search engine ever developed is considered Archives, which was used to search for FTP files and the first text-based search engine is considered veronica. Today, the most popular and common known search engine is Google. Program that searches databases and internet for the document  content  keyword specified by a user. Many search engines allow inclusion of Boolean operation such as And Or 'Not,' that make a search specific and faster. Google is the most popular search engine in today's world. Search engines are software that search documents for specified keyword and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. A Search engine is really a general class of programs; however, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Google, Bing and Yahoo! Search that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web.  Because large search engines contain millions and sometimes billions of pages, many search engines not only just search the pages but also display the results depending upon their importance. This importance is commonly determined by using various algorithms. The data collected above is used to rank the page and is the primary method a search engine uses to determine if a page should be shown and in what order. Finally, once the data is processed it is broken up into one or more files, moved to different computers, or loaded into memory where it can be accessed when a search is performed.

 

Working Of Search Engines

How do search engines work?

Every search engine uses different complex mathematical formulas to generate search results. The results for a specific query are then displayed on the SERP. Search engine algorithms take the key elements of a web page, including the page title, content and keyword density, and come up with a ranking for where to place the results on the pages. Each search engine’s algorithm is unique, so a top ranking on Yahoo! does not guarantee a prominent ranking on Google, and vice versa. To make things more complicated, the algorithms used by search engines are not only closely guarded secrets, they are also constantly undergoing modification and revision. This means that the criteria to best optimize a site with must be surmised through observation, as well as trial and error — and not just once, but continuously. Gimmicks less reputable SEO firms tout as the answer to better site rankings may work at best for only a short period before the search engine’s developers become wise to the tactics and change their algorithm. More likely, sites using these tricks will be labeled as spam by the search engines and their rankings will plummet. Search engines only “see” the text on web pages, and use the underlying HTML structure to determine relevance. Large photos, or dynamic Flash animation mean nothing to search engines, but the actual text on your pages does. It is difficult to build a Flash site that is as friendly to search engines; as a result, Flash sites will tend not to rank as high as sites developed with well coded HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets — a complex mechanism for adding styles to website pages above and beyond regular HTML). If the terms you want to be found by do not appear in the text of your website, it will be very difficult for your website to yield high placement in the SERPs

Search Engine Optimizing VS Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Optimizing:

SEO is the process of optimizing your web site for the purpose of getting free traffic from search engines. An optimized web site is more easily understood by Search engine crawlers, so there are more chances of ranking higher in SERPS. There are 2 main pillars of SEO, what is called on-site SEO and off-site SEO. On-Site SEO are rules you can apply on your web site or blog so that it’s more search engine friendly. For example you need to use proper titles, good descriptions, well formatted URLs, correct use of H1, H2 and images and many more. Off-site SEO refers to the process of getting votes from other web sites for the purpose of increasing your web site’s trust in the eyes of search engines. For beginners this may be confusing but try to think about it like a ranking system where the web site who has the most votes ranks higher. Votes in our case are links coming from other web sites to your site. That is also the reason why off-site SEO is referring to as link building. To avoid any misunderstandings it’s not only a matter of how many links you have pointing to your website but also from where these links are coming and a number of other factors I am not going to cover now.

Search Engine Marketing:

SEM is the marketing process with a goal of getting more visibility in search engines either by getting more free traffic (SEO) or paid traffic . Through paid search advertising you essentially buy advertising space in the search engine results. So instead of trying to rank higher and get free traffic you pay to appear in front of the searches. The most well-known advertising agency for PSA is Google Adwords. Through Google ad words you can get your ads appear in the Google search results and you pay only for the clicks on your ads. This is also the reason why the whole process is called Pay-per-click or PPC. Bing and Yahoo have a similar system but it not so successful and widely known as Ad words. SEM traffic is considered the most important source of Internet traffic because it is targeted. It is widely accepted that people use the search engines to find a solution to a problem, an answer to their question or to learn how to do something. So when searches click on a web site from the search results or click on an ad, they are more likely to convert. The relevancy of the displayed web sites and ads makes SEM traffic more valuable than any of the other sources. Facebook and twitter are trying to optimize their advertising platforms to utilize targeted traffic but still traffic coming directly from search engines has a better ROI.