What Does a Search Engine Do and Why? What is Its Role?

What Does a Search Engine and Why? What is its Role? Data Process.

I promised to give visitors a helpful knowledge base on my home page. Well, we will cover a vital topic: search engines.

Search engines do play a significant role in today’s digital world. They show us the ‘way’ to find something when we search for it online, whether it’s a product, a service, or a place. Today’s focus will, therefore, be on a deeper look at search engines.

Today’s questions to answer are: what does a search engine do and why? And what is its role in the digital world?

Let’s get a deeper insight into their operation and activity and clarify how-to questions. You will find some definitions here, and I will also perform a test search to demonstrate the basics.

The content of this page (& navigation also):

A. What does a Search Engine do, why, and what is its Role? ⬇
B. How do search engines discover new pages on websites? ⬇
C. Make a test search on Google, for example ⬇
D. What pleases an internet surfer while using a search engine? ⬇
E. What pleases the seller of the particular product? ⬇

A. What does a Search Engine do, why, and what is its Role?

1. What:

A search engine is a tool that helps users find information online. It crawls and indexes web pages, which means it systematically explores the web and stores critical information about each page in its database. When you enter a query, the search engine quickly scans its index and uses complex algorithms to rank the results based on relevance, authority, and user intent. The most relevant results are then displayed in a list, often with snippets of information or links. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! use various factors, including keywords, content quality, and website authority, to determine which pages to show. They also constantly update their algorithms to improve accuracy and user experience, making finding the most relevant information more accessible.

2. Why:

Search engines perform this activity to organize the vast amount of online information and make it easily accessible to users. By indexing web pages and ranking them according to relevance, search engines help users find specific information quickly, saving time and effort. Their primary goal is to provide accurate, relevant results that satisfy user queries, enhancing the overall user experience.

From a business perspective, search engines generate revenue primarily through advertising. By offering relevant search results and integrating ads, they attract a large user base, attracting advertisers. The more effective the search engine delivers quality results, the more users it retains, driving more ad revenue. In summary, search engines organize information to improve user satisfaction and drive their profitability through advertising.

3. Role:

The role of search engines is to act as intermediaries between users and the vast amount of information available online. They organize, categorize, and prioritize web content to help users find the most relevant and useful information quickly and efficiently. By doing so, search engines enable easy access to knowledge, facilitate research, and support decision-making processes in various fields, from everyday inquiries to complex academic or professional studies.

In addition, search engines play a crucial role in digital marketing and e-commerce, driving website traffic and connecting businesses with potential customers. They are also essential for content discovery, helping creators reach broader audiences by making their content more visible. Overall, search engines serve as gatekeepers of information on the internet, shaping how we access and interact with the digital world.

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B. How do search engines discover new pages on websites?

Major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex (and many more, which mainly use the best ones) send out special software robots called “spiders” to build a list of the most critical words on every website.
These automated spiders start on popular sites, indexing the words on each page and following every link found within the site. They use sophisticated and frequently changing algorithms to discover and avoid spamming and other harmful activities, such as Google’s Penguin or Hummingbird.

It is also crucial not to exceed the size of your pages. For instance, Bing will not crawl more than 150 kB of code. This code sum doesn’t just scramble our clear texts but the entire set of characters entered, so be careful. When designing and implementing a multi-colored web page (e.g., a colored background with different colored H tags and text), it is highly recommended to use your own CSS, which can greatly reduce the size of the HTML text. Many web template vendors know this by default, so we don’t have to struggle manually.
Search engines give higher website rankings based on the quality of the links pointing to other websites (backlinking, later).

Not the Quantity but the Quality matters!

Don’t forget about creating relevant content(s) because the quality of links will be based on it. Since the last changes last year, Google has been using more and more highly sophisticated to0ls, where not only the keywords have important roles like before the algorithm changes, but their synonyms, related keywords, acronyms, spelling variants, and semantic variants.
Today’s tools – such as AI-implemented text or image generators – can significantly facilitate content editing.
The more authority and trust a website receives from the search engines, the higher the search engine rankings are. This is why you want to optimize your website using effective and trusted On-page and Off-page methods. I’ll explain the difference between them next time.

The main job of a search engine is to provide the very best and most relevant information for the searchers. People in business generally have the same goal: immediately gaining the quickest access to the best available products and services. Nowadays, Search Engines can do this job, so they really and quickly ease our lives with quick and relevant searches on the Internet.

Analyzing this very tough requirement, it is immediately apparent that search engines are in a never-ending business, too: their product is to deliver quality information of search results immediately to searchers.
When a searcher comes, for instance, to Google’s home page and performs a query, she/he wants to be shown the very best information fast and within the first three pages, sometimes within the first paIn fact, 90 (!) percent of the searchers visit only the first three result pages. So, being within the three on the SERP (Search Results Page) is imperative. Most likely on the first

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C. Make a test search on Google, for example

To facilitate a better understanding, I’ll show you a practical example of how a search engine works: Google.

Example: Imagine you want to find something urgent, for instance, a ”black tie” for the weekend party. And it is Friday, so you should be quick enough with the results if you want to use the product. You have many opportunities to choose one from the local magazine or the local shop personally. But you lack time, so you have to decide fast.
The easiest way is to open an internet browser – in this example, Google, but it could be any other – to see and compare the best offers. You type”black tie” into your browser, and you may choose immediately from the given selection. Type in the Google search bar: black tie.

“black tie” Search – Google Search Bar, Excerpt

Now, let’s see the SERP – Search Results Page:

“black tie” Search – Google Search Results Page, Excerpt

As you can see, you got back 1,510,000,000 (1510 million!) results. It is quite a lot. So, if you want to buy one, you can choose to form the choice.

This is the SERP above for the key phrase “black tie“. As you can count it (10 results/page), there can be approximately 1,510,000,000/10=151,000,00 (151 million) pages with the same results. This result may be won’t satisfy your curiosity, so you begin to refine your search.

Let’s try now “black tie with white dots“, because you will like it and wear it next time.

“black tie with white dots” – Google Search

Let’s see the results:

“black tie with white dots” – Google-SERP

We should rate this latest search much better: “only” 32,100,000 results because we used a more specialized keyword structure. Consequently, if you use specialized, targeted, so-called “long tail keywords”, or “key phrases”, you will get a much more accurate result. You can recognize how much the new SERP differs from the first search.
Today’s Google already makes the search easier because when you enter the keyword, it already lists several chances, pay attention to that!

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D. What pleases an internet surfer while using a search engine?

An internet surfer is looking for information and answers to his questions. Content and easy-to-navigate content – Searching is called searching for a reason. Remember the last time you searched; what did you search for, and what did you find? How fast was it? If you find the result, the search engine works properly.
Remember, how could you find the product? Somebody somehow wanted to sell a ”black tie with white dots”, and you will find it. Perhaps you got it because of a Google search, or it was a paid advertisement – from your point of view, it doesn’t matter – you have found what you were looking for. From this aspect, only the result is that important.

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E. What pleases the seller of the particular product?

It is easy to answer the question: he had been allowed to sell another product and make a profit.

And this is your aim as well if you were a seller.

Summary & Conclusion:

This was only a simple example of how a search engine works.
Furthermore, I wanted to present the difference between a “general” and “targeted” search.
Thirdly, now you might be aware that if your site comes up on the first page within the search results, you will be in a much better position to become the winner of the game.

It is a fact that more than 85% of web users employ search engines to find the desired products online. Approximately 90% of them don’t and will not go behind the first three pages because they either have no time for it or are tired of further searching. Suppose your website – containing your relevant product or service – is not listed in the significant first engines and not within the first ten results. In that case, you lose to your competitors in every search and moment.

Developing SEO is a long-term process. You could see – and take the necessary consequences – from the examples above how an “average” searcher searches for the results on the Internet. During this SEO process, you will continually be able to improve your understanding of how visitors search for and find – for them relevant – information. Knowing these techniques might make you the next publisher in the top 10.

Coming: Importance of Indexing, Sitemap, Ranking, And Backlinks page.

Thanks for reading!

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