Search Engine Entry

Hey again

This is my second post of the day because last week there was so much to do i panicked a little and only got half of it done. So...luckily this week's stuff was a little easier and i did it. So here is last week's stuff...

Basically it involved answering a few questions about search engines. I got my information from my brain, a friend who mentioned something this morning and Wikipedia and ABC online for the last question.

Q1: What is a search engine?

My own definition doesn't make a lot of sense but this is my blog so you have to hear it...
A search engine is the place where you start that gives you websites relating to the topic you enter into the search engine...and now for the real definition:

According to Wikipedia.net a search engine is "...an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored in a computer system..."

Q2: How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the Internet?

According to my friend who told me this for some random reason this morning, search engines rank stuff by popularity, so how many times they are used and not actually how useful/reliable/real/good the information is. However on ABC online there is a little dropdown box beside where you enter your search item that says "search based on..." And the criteria currently selected was "Relevance" so...

Q3: who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?

Well this question kind of threw up on my above theory didn't it? I'm going to stick with it however and say that search engines simply rely on how often a page is used and this is how they judge reliability. Also, it seems like engines highlight all the times your search words as used in the website or article or whatever so this could be another way in which they are choosing the most relevant. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean they are the most relevant.

Q4: what are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?

I am a Googler, I always use Google to find things, when i have an assignment or have to find out something my first thought is "I'll Google it!" Not only is this fun to say but also really automatic. I think the reason for this is simply availability, at my high school Google was the homepage and that was the one that everyone used due to this. I have never really used Yahoo but i do sometimes use MSN but mainly i am a Googler.

Q5: Can you find some current news stories about search engines?

Google has been in the news a bit saying how in the future they think machines will be the ones doing all the language translation and not top linguists. I kind of thought that was already happening...


Okay, that is the end of last week's work that I have done this week.

Bye again