Webupon

Over the years, the internet has grown so large that it would be really difficult for one to memorize all the available URLs in the world that could give you the information that you need. Sometimes, even if you know that site, you’d want a different point of view that other sites could provide. Often times, you have no idea where to start. This is the main reason why search engines where born.

Originally, search engines’ sole role was to search names on the web. We could say that Alan Emtage was the father of it all. He created the very first tool of searching the internet…and he called it Archie.

After Archie, Mark McCahill came up with tow new other tools which were named Veronica (Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) and Jughead (Jonzy’s Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display). You may already get the idea that McCahill was a fan of the Archie comic book.

Although these three tools were first, technically speaking, it was an engine that was christened Wandex that was considered as first actual search engine. It still had a lot of improvement that is needed though. The Wandex was applying the web crawler principle which was adapted into a number of search engines that were launched in 1993 – 1995 like Infoseek, Northern Light, Alta.Vista and Yahoo!

Google Search Engine

Google was launched around 2000. As you can notice, when you go Google, you actually get a very simple site where you can immediately see the Search Bar. If you want a detailed and technical explanation of how the Google search engine works, please refer  here. But to simply it in layman’s terms, Google works this way: when someone queries or asks Google to search for something, Google will ask all the websites and servers in the world if someone has the info that its user is seeking (in Computer terminology, it’s called the PageRank Algorithm). All servers and websites that will reply back in return (using Boolean Algorithm) will be displayed by Google to the user in return. Sounds simple? Not really.

Google is very efficient because it caches and indexes the sites that it finds. Meaning? It means that Google does not only store the URL of the site that it found but the actual snapshot of the web page. That is why sometimes, when you search Google, you may see a particular page of the site, but when you try to go to the source, it will say that it is already a dead site. In effect, Google is able to give results that may not be available elsewhere any more. This makes Google (based on Dec. 2007 statistics) as the number one search engine in the world

Yahoo Search Engine

Yahoo!, just like what was mentioned earlier, was launched earlier than Google. It provided a wide range of services including a web portal, a Yahoo! Directory and Yahoo! Mail. It has a rich history when it comes to how this Search engine became a world wide success.

Yahoo was already a brand name of a sauce, thus the additional exclamation mark to make it the Yahoo! That we know today.

Yahoo! had acquired a number of services to expand their customer reach. Examples are Rocketmail which became Yahoo! Mail, CalssicGames.com which was renamed to Yahoo! Games. They also acquired GeoCities, and eGroups (now known as Yahoo Groups).

In effect, Yahoo is not just a search engine but more of a corporation with a lot of services to offer. Year 200, Yahoo signed contract with Google making Google as the provider of the yahoo search results.

As of 2004, Yahoo dropped Google and started using its own technology as well as the technology of its acquired services like AltaVista and AlltheWeb.

Year 2006, AltaVista became the sole provider of Yahoo search results.

Yahoo’s search engine, in contrast to that of Google works this way: a user would send a search request. Yahoo engine will then use its multi-threaded crawler (which is properly termed as Scooter) to search its database of stored information. To make it simple, it is still the same as the web-crawler technology, and more or less the same as how Google works. The only difference is that, Yahoo stores the text of every webpage it finds and not the actual screenshot. Thus, if the site is changed, Yahoo (thru Boolen algorithm) would not be able to seek the site anymore.

Nevertheless, up to date, Yahoo! is the second most popular search engine used in the world.

Microsoft’s Live Search (Previously Known as The MSN Search)

Live Search was created to compete with Google and Yahoo. And if you try to look for related articles, you might come across some sites or blogs speculating about the trend of these three search engines.

An example is this observation (from: http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/general/by-tom/yahoo-vs-msn-vs-google-to-be-google-vs-yahoo-vs-msn):

Yahoo – 30% reach
MSN -28% reach
Google – 22% reach

This was most likely true in 1995. But it is most certainly not true now. Live Search, according to Dec. 2007 ranks only number four in the most used search engines in the world. It was even topped by Baidu, a search engine widely used in People’s Republic of China (yep…you have to consider their population).

The technology of Live Search is not far from that of Yahoo because it also uses the technology that was developed by Intomi and AltaVista. However, added with the Microsoft’s own innovations, when a user request for a search, Live Search will look through the Web addresses and will return samples of web content that is relevant to the users query.

It is actually convenient if you think about it because it will already eliminate unnecessary web sites that does not meet the exact query. But then again, if you were a user that wants to know everything there is about something, you might want to see ALL possible results and just do the elimination your self.

As of April 18, 2008, the last “rumor” or speculation that is related to the Live Search and Yahoo is that there might be a merging that will happen in the future. A merge that may overthrow Google? Hmmm…

The offer has been declined by Yahoo. Another rumor is that Yahoo and AOL will be merging soon. Let’s keep ourselves posted!

The Others:

If you’d want to try another interface or other look…you might want to try these other Search engines:

Baidu

Today, Baidu has a market value of $3 billion and operates the fourth-most trafficked Web site in the world. And Baidu is doing what no other Internet company has been able to do: clobbering Google and Yahoo in its home market

(excerpt from: New York Times)

Chinese government and industry sources stated that Baidu received a license from Beijing, which allows the search engine to become a fully-fledged news website. Thus Baidu will be able to provide its own reports, besides showing certain results as a search engine. The company is already getting its news department ready. Baidu is the first Chinese search engine to receive such a license.

With this though, it is also known the Chinese government is more concerned advertising rather than actual results for its users. Thus, up to date, critics are saying that this may not last long.

Ask.com

A very informative search engine not in terms of technology but in terms of subject matter. The Ask search engine actually relies on its editors to update their database on a daily or weekly basis to ensure that updated subject matters are available for their users to read. In simpler terms, the Ask Jeeves search engine would pull up results based on popularity by subject.

Example is if you’d be searching for the subject: “Wild Life”, Ask Jeeves search engine will use its algorithm to look for the most popular sites that has the subject matter “Wild Life.”

Summary

The fast paced technology is one of the driving forces of almost all the biggest corporation in the world. If you do not keep up, you trail behind, you love revenue. This article’s goal is to give a simple explanation of how a search engine works. You may not really see the relevance of it, but if you think about it, with effective use, it can empower you in terms of knowledge…or even revenue.