The first well documented search engine that searched content files, namely FTP files, was Archie, which debuted on 10 September 1990. The first internet search engines predate the debut of the Web in December 1990: WHOIS user search dates back to 1982, and the Knowbot Information Service multi-network user search was first implemented in 1989. Link analysis would eventually become a crucial component of search engines through algorithms such as Hyper Search and PageRank. Inactive, rebranded Yellowee (was redirecting to )Ī system for locating published information intended to overcome the ever increasing difficulty of locating information in ever-growing centralized indices of scientific work was described in 1945 by Vannevar Bush, who wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly titled ' As We May Think' in which he envisioned libraries of research with connected annotations not unlike modern hyperlinks. Inactive (used Inktomi search technology) Inactive, incorporated into Baidu in 2000 Inactive, acquired by Yahoo! in 2003, since 2013 redirects to Yahoo! Any internet-based content that cannot be indexed and searched by a web search engine falls under the category of deep web.įurther information: Timeline of web search engines Timeline ( full list)Īctive, initially a search function for Yahoo! Directory Unlike web directories and social bookmarking sites, which are maintained by human editors, search engines also maintain real-time information by running an algorithm on a web crawler. Some search engines also mine data available in databases or open directories. The information may be a mix of links to web pages, images, videos, infographics, articles, research papers, and other types of files.

The results are then ranked by relevancy and displayed to the user. When a user enters a query into a search engine, the engine scans its index of web pages to find those that are relevant to the user's query. The search results are generally presented in a line of results, often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The results of a search for the term 'lunar eclipse' in a web-based image search engineĪ search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches.

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