Getting Familiar with the Search Engines

There are two types of search engines used in the web. But oftentimes the term “search engine” is used to refer to both of these two types. These two types of search engines collect their listings in fundamentally different ways. Types of Search Engines:

• Crawler Based



Search engines that are crawler based gather their listings automatically. They have “Spiders” or “crawlers” that search on their entire web. The results of their crawl are what users see as “search results”. The spiders can crawl into your web pages, and as such, it can see if you had done any changes on the page.

A crawler based search engine has three vital elements. These elements all work together to come up with a successful search results.

Elements of a Crawler Based Search Engine

• Spider/Crawler



The spider or the crawler is the one responsible in visiting the site and all its pages. It follows the links to all other pages within the site. Search engines crawl or spider a site on a regular basis to index changes and modifications made on a page.

• Index



The index is also referred to as the “catalog”. It carries a copy of all the web pages that the spider has found. Every time a page is modified or changed, the index is also updated to record the new information. There are times when these changes have been found by the spiders already but the index has not been updated yet, thus, the term “spidered” but not yet “indexed”.

• Search Engine Software



Search Engine Software refers to the program that sifts through all the web pages included in the index to find matches to a particular search. It also ranks all the pages it found in order of importance. If someone keys in “travel in Ireland” at the search box, the search engine software looks for pages that will match these keyword phrase and list them in order of relevance in the search results.

• Human Listed Directories



A human listed directory is one that depends on humans for its listings. Interchangeably, human listed directory and human powered directory are used to mean the other. A human listed directory works through its editors. When a particular site submits a listing (with short description of the page/site), the editors review it. The search looks for matches from the descriptions that are submitted and reviewed. Modifying or changing a particular page on the site will not have any effect on your site’s listing.

It is important to understand the search engines and how they work if you intend to optimize your site or some of its pages for the search engines.

A search engine is an essential factor that will give your site the traffic it deserves. Need to optimize your site for the search engines? Please see our SEO Services or apply for a free SEO Analysis.