Internet search engines are usually the pages that most people go to when they open their web browser. There are even many who have their favorite search engine as a homepage in their browser so they don’t have to walk or write the address. In this sense, there is no doubt that Google is the most used worldwide, however, there are other alternative search engines that many may not know. Next, we are going to show what a search engine is , how they work, what Google does to find everything we are looking for and what are the most popular alternatives .
Search engines are the most used online tool worldwide, since they are the ones that allow us to perform searches across the network and those who are responsible for collecting the best results based on what we are looking for. These results depend on the accuracy of our searches, but the truth is that, the better results a search engine shows us with the least number of searches, the better experience users will have.
What is an Internet search engine and how it works
A search engine or Internet search engine is a system capable of searching certain information on web servers around the world to show a series of results related to each search. These results are direct links to each and every one of the websites where the information that was searched was found.
Once the users indicate in the search engines what are called keywords or search words, the engines use robots to track the millions of web servers in search of those sites where relevant information on the search keyword has been found .
These robots or search engines also take into account that the results are relevant to each search. To know if they are important, what it does is measure their popularity, which in this case is measured by visits. That is, if a site contains information about the search keyword and is also a site with numerous visits, then it is one of the relevant results of that search.
To do this, they make use of complex algorithms that analyze each website to know if they are relevant or not and generate their own ranking to finally show the results to the user. In this way, they ensure that the best results are always shown in the top positions of their ranking. Sites that have previously been visited by other users who were looking for the same information.
How does Google search work?
The truth is that to this question we could answer that Google is the only one that really knows how Google works , since the operation of its algorithms is something that nobody knows. However, we will show in detail how your searches work.
The first thing to indicate is that the giant search engine collects information from all web pages, but also from all content sent by the users themselves in some of its services such as Google My Business or Google Maps, other public databases in Internet, scanned books and many other sources.
Now, to generate web page results, the giant search engine follows these three fundamental steps: tracking, indexing and publishing.
Tracking
The first step is to track the network to find all the pages and then be able to take them into account when searching through the search engine. To do this, Google constantly tracks to find new pages and add it to its list of known websites.
In addition to this tracking process, you can also get to know new websites through the links that other pages already known to the giant search engine may contain to them. Although also, developers or owners of websites can ask Google to crawl their new pages so that they take them into account when searching and displaying results.
Indexing
After finding a new page, the next thing is to interpret its content , a process called indexing. In this process, what is done is to analyze the content of the site cataloging the image or video files and all the text it contains to save in the huge database of the giant search engine.
In this regard, Google itself recommends the owners of the websites:
- Create short page titles that have meaning
- Use page headers that reference the main topic
- Transmit the text content and not with images, since it is much easier to interpret by the search engine.
All this and other things are what Google will analyze in its search process and what it will take into account to show one or the other results.
Publication
Therefore, at the time we use the famous search engine and enter a query, what Google’s engine will do is find the best results based on a lot of factors besides the content itself, search keys and popularity of the sites found, such as location, language, device used, etc. All with the firm objective of showing the results that best suit each of the searches.
In short, the algorithms used by the giant search engine take into account a large amount of data and parameters through computer programs that determine the sites to be traced, the frequency and the number of pages to be scanned for each of them to save all the information in their databases and that later, they can collect all the necessary information to show the best results.
Internet search engines alternative to Google
If we ask all the people we have around us, including ourselves, how many Internet browsers they know, it is normal that they surpass our fingers to count them. There is no doubt that everyone would almost certainly say the name of Google first, being able to add other names such as the search engine Bing or Yahoo, however, there are many other alternatives as we will see below.
Bing
It is the Internet search engine owned by Microsoft and we could say that the most direct rival of Google. Of course, according to the eBizMBA ranking itself updated this January, 2020, there is still a lot of distance in terms of unique users per month between both search engines.
It is the default search engine in Microsoft’s browser, so it is available in a lot of languages. In addition, its interface is quite attractive, since the background image changes every day showing some of the most curious and beautiful corners of the world. Go to Bing
Yahoo
It is another of the most veteran Internet search engines and another of the most popular, especially when what we want is to know very specific information or we are looking for answers to very extensive questions, since we must not forget that the Yahoo Answer service is integrated.
In addition, it also includes other Yahoo tools such as Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Weather for the search of financial or weather information. While the Yahoo page shows the search engine at the top, we can find other sections with news at the bottom. Of course, after performing a search we will show the results on a fully dedicated page. Go to Yahoo
Ask
Ask emerged, as its name suggests, as an Internet search engine based on offering answers to questions. Something that continues to do today, since all its efforts is to improve the technology used to answer all questions of interest to users. Therefore, if we are looking for answers to certain questions of art, literature, science, business, geography or education, among others, we can go to this particular Internet search engine. Go to Ask
Aol
Although when you enter the Aol website you can remind us of Yahoo, the results page is very similar to Google. It is a search engine of American origin that emerged in the 90s and also has several filters to try to refine more searches. An Internet search engine that offers its own secure mode or Safe Search mode and also gives the option of creating an email address within your domain.
With a simple interface, it allows you to search all kinds of information, news, images, videos, etc. In addition, it includes a tab to be able to sort the results by date, something that is usually quite useful on certain occasions. Go to Aol
DuckDuckGo
Perhaps it is one of the Internet search engines that has gained more popularity in recent years. His great concern to protect user privacy has caused many people to start using DuckDuckGo as their default search engine.
It keeps the search history private and relies on other search engines to offer the best results to users. Despite being open source, it greatly controls the presence of ads, showing only one per page. Go to DuckDuckGo .
Yandex
Of Russian origin, this Internet search engine is the default in the Russian version of the Mozilla Firefox browser, but the truth is that every time it has a greater number of daily searches. In addition to the search engine itself, it has its own marketing and analytical tools, as well as security tools that fight against the impersonation of DNS identity and WiFI protection, image search, videos, mail service, maps and your own web search engine . Go to Yandex
Wolfram Alpha
Within this compilation of search engines we also find WolframAlpha. A search engine that differs quite a lot from the vast majority since, the results shown are direct, that is, in the form of data or information.
Very useful if what we are looking for is scientific, mathematical data, academic reports, etc. Moreover, from the main page we can see all the categories together under the search engine itself so that we can access any of them quickly. Go to WolframAlpha .
WebCrawler
On this occasion, it is a metasearch engine that uses Google and Yahoo search engines to display the results. It allows you to perform web searches, images, videos or news or filter between these categories from the results page. It has a very simple design and the fact of relying on the engines of Google and Yahoo makes it show the results very quickly. Go to WebCrawler .
Yippy
Yippy is another Internet search engine that relies on other search engines, therefore, a combination of the results of the engines used will be the final result that Yippy offers us. Of course, some consider this search engine as a Deep Web search engine, as it shows among its results some websites and links to censored content. Go to Yippy
Dogpile
If you are a dog lover, then Dogpile may be your favorite Internet search engine. Outside of jokes, it is a search engine that has certain interesting functions. The first of all is that it is one of the few that asks us for permission to save our searches. However, there are other features that make it interesting, such as its speed, accuracy in searches or that has its own app for iOS and Android. Go to Dogpile
Startpage
Although some may still know him under the name of IxQuick, his current name is Startpage. A search engine that takes great care of the users’ privacy, since it saves cookies anonymously and offers the possibility of saving said cookies or not from the configuration settings. It offers a great search speed, so it quickly shows us the results, where it qualifies the links according to the searches of other engines. Go to Startpage
Excite
He is one of the Internet search engines who will sound more and less. Although the original site looked more like a conventional website than a search engine, it is currently changing its appearance, it has a much more sober and search-oriented design. From the tab shown next to the Search button, we can filter the results by web, images, news or videos. It offers other services such as being able to create an email account. Go to Excite.
Metacrawler
It is another Internet search engine that supports or uses other search engines to display the results. In this case, Metacrawler uses the Google search engine for web results and Yahoo for image searches. It also allows filtering by web results, news, images or videos. Go to Metacrawler .
Kiddle
Google is for many children. It is an Internet search engine specially designed for use by the smallest of the house. It works similarly to Google and other search engines, but censures those results with explicit or sensitive content for children. Its interface and design reminds Google, although it uses more fun colors, it has two very interesting tabs, Kpedia and Kimagenes. As the name implies, the first gives us access to a search engine encyclopedia, while the second shows image results. Go to Kiddle
Lycos
It is a quite veteran search engine that in addition to the search engine itself, has other free services such as email, games, videos, weather information, etc. The link to all these services can be found in the bottom bar, so it offers quick access to each of them. Go to Lycos .
Ecosia
It is one of the Internet search engines similar to Google in terms of results and filters offered for the results. However, there is a big difference between them, and that is that Ecosia invests all the money it gets from the ads shown in planting trees. In addition to its desktop version, it is also available as an app for iOS and Android devices. Go to Ecosia.
Gibiru
Gibiru is a particular search engine, since its results show pages that most search engines censor. However, Gibiru’s algorithm does not avoid these types of sites and hence they are shown if there is no problem between the results. However, according to its own motto, one of the great premises of this Internet search engine is user privacy. Go to Gibiru.
Qwant
Search engine of French origin that protects the privacy of users and that despite having filters similar to those of most Internet search engines in this list and having an algorithm similar to Google, also allows filtering searches through social networks . Go to Qwant
Peekier
It is a rather peculiar search engine when it comes to displaying the search results, since it shows a preview of the results, from where we can already see which is the link that may interest us the most and subsequently leads us to the result in question. Go to Peekier
Exalead
It is another quite peculiar search engine, since it shows us results from another perspective, since it is capable of enriching them by displaying certain annexed data, statistics, tips, suggestions, etc. Offers filtering by language, location, categories, type of page, etc. It has a minimalist design and is very intuitive. Go to Exalead .
