Search Engines

Guide Note:

Search engines allow users to find information within an electronic system. The term most commonly refers to internet search engines such as Google.

History:

Alan Emtage, a student from the McGill University, created the first search engine in 1990. The program was called "Archie" which stood for archive without the v. Archie worked by downloading the file names in public anonymous FTP directories.

In 1993, Matthew Gray of MIT created the first web search engine. It was called Wandex and worked by using a web crawler, a program that systematically scans and collects information from the Internet.

Fast Facts:

1. First used in 1990
2. Google and Yahoo! are the most popular

Edit Guide Note and Fast Facts

Also try: our search engine category.

The Mahalo Top 7

1. Wikipedia: Web Search Engine
2. Search Engine Land
3. Search Engine Watch
4. Howstuffworks: How Internet Search Engines Work 
5. Search Engine History
6. Podcast: Daily SearchCast
7. Blog: John Battelle's Searchblog

Search Engine News and Articles

• Technology Review: Google's director of research talks about the evolution of Web search (February, 2008)
• Telegraph: In search of the new Google (March 14, 2008)
• DailyDomainer: Why "Yahoo" Is The #1 Search Term On Google (Jan 31, 2007)
• ScienceDaily: Google Favored Over Other Search Engines By Webmasters (Nov 16, 2007)
• Wired: How to Foil Search Engine Snoops (Jan 20, 2006)
• Google News: Search Engine
• Scientific American: Seeking Better Web Searches (Feb 2005)
• Network Computing: Analysis: Enterprise Search (Jun 25, 2007)

Search Engine Educational Resources

• DegreeTutor: Librarian's Ultimate Guide to Search Engines
• OnLamp: Creating Google Custom Search Engines
• WebReference: Search Engines: What they Are, How They Work (1997)
• Internet Tutorials: How to Choose a Search Engine or Directory
• Learn Web Skills: Using Search Engines - A Tutorial
• Search Engine Watch: How Search Engines Work
• UC Berkeley: Search Engines

Search Engine Services

• Yahoo! Directory: Search Engines and Directories
• Wikipedia: List of search engines

Popular Search Engines

• Google
• Yahoo!
• Ask
• Microsoft Live

Alternative Search Engines

• Clusty
• ChaCha
• aftervote

Photo Search Engines

• Picsearch.com: Photo Search Engine

Search Engine Scientific Articles

• Stanford: Anatomy of a Large Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
• Scirus: Search Engine Scientific Resources

Search Engine Books

• Amazon.com: Search Engine Books
• Google Book Search: Search Engines
• Barnes & Noble: Search Engines  

Related Searches