Search Engine

A Search Engine is a computer program which retrieves information from a variety of sources and makes it easier to search. The most common use of Search Engines is searching the internet for information.

Search Engines crawl the internet using Bots or Spiders which regularly visit web sites and download information and place them in the Search Engine Index.

Most Search Engines store a massive amount of information to make indexing and retrieval faster.

Search Engines

As of April 2009, the most popular search engines are:

Universal Search Engines

• Google
• Yahoo!
• Microsoft Live a.k.a. MSN Search (Microsoft Network)
• Ask
  • Teoma acquired by Ask
• AltaVista
• Lycos

Foreign Language Search Engines

• Baidu Chinese Search Engine
• Ekolay Turkish Search Engine
• Kvasir.no Norway Search Engine
• MyNet Turkish Search Engine
• Najdi Slovenian Search Engine
• Netsprint Polish Search Engine
• Onet Polish Search Engine
• Ozu Spanish Search Engine
• Sesam (Norway) Norway Search Engine
• Sesam (Sweden) Swedish Search Engine
• Szukacz Polish Search Engine
• Virgilio Italian Search Engine
• Voilà French Search Engine
• WP Polish Search Engine
• Yam Chinese Search Engine
• Yandex Russian Search Engine

Other Search Engines

• A9 from Amazon
• AOL America Online
  • Netscape Now part of AOL
• BrainFox Site search appears to only work when logged in
• Blowsearch
• Excite
• Gigablast
• InfoSpace
• Kanoodle
• LookSmart
• Terra
• WebMenu

Web Directories

• Open Directory Project
• SuperPages

Comparison Search Engines

• Shopica
• Shopzilla

Niche/Custom Search Engines

• Public Record
• Northern Light

Aggregator Search Engines

These sites group search engine results pages (SERPS) from multiple engines:

• Mamma