SECTION 3: USING SEARCH ENGINES EFFECTIVELY

WHAT IS A SEARCH ENGINE?

When you enter a word or phrase into a search engine, you are NOT actually searching the entire Web right then and there. Instead, you are searching a database or INDEX that has been compiled over time.

Search engine databases are collections of Web sites and materials. These databases are most frequently built by a spiders -- computer programs that roam the Web finding new sites, and updating the database.

During the search process, the software sifts through the millions of sites in the database to find matches to the word or phrase that you entered.

Each search engine's database has different features, and no one database can include all of the Web pages in existence, so search results will vary depending upon which search engine you are using.

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