What is a Search Engine ?

A search engine can be defined as a program that uses automatic pre-programmed techniques to gather information on the Internet into an index, almost like a dictionary or an encyclopedia.

The method to index the information on the Internet is called "crawling" and is done by a clever robot called a spider. The spider goes through the web sites, reads the contents and puts it into the search engine's database. Examples of search engines using spiders are: AltaVista, Fast, Google, Inktomi, Lycos, MSN, Yahoo, Ananzi, Aardvark and more. After indexing, the program allows internet users to conduct searches on the index and then displays the relevant results.

The algorithms are constantly changed to filter out new spam techniques. Spam techniques aim to falsely ensure the high ranking of a web site. Search engines pick this up when keywords are repeated too many times in the meta and/or title tags as well as the alt attribute.

If search engines are spammed, the web site can be blacklisted on the search engine. Spiders have the intelligence to calculate the number of times a keyword appears against the total amount of words on the page.
Other ways to avoid spamming is to steer clear of link farms, self generating links, and sites which offer free links to hundreds of sites.
Certain search engines do not allow websites with any optimisation to appear in their indexing. A classic example of such a search engine is DMOZ, otherwise known as the Open Directory Project, which is more a directory than a search engine, although it also has search functionality.

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