Search engines are tools that help us find information on the Internet. They use automated software agents (also known as crawlers or spiders) to visit web sites, read the information on them and follow any links they contain to other sites. They then add all of this information back to a central depository, where it is stored in an index that can be searched when users submit textual web search queries.

Each search engine has its own proprietary algorithm for searching its indexes and ranking the content it returns on search engine results pages (SERPs). Traditionally, searches were based primarily on page content, but as search engines evolved to deal with websites that “gamed” the system with sophisticated SEO techniques, this became less and less the case. Now, search engines use complex algorithms to weigh many different factors in determining how to rank pages.

Because search engines are designed to return the most relevant results possible, it’s important to understand a few basic principles in order to get better search results. This article will introduce some general search engine techniques and help you improve your searches by learning how to structure your searches in search blocks, combine search terms using boolean operators, search for word stems and phrases and search with search fields.

Despite the fact that the World Wide Web would not even exist for another year, three computer science students at McGill University in Montreal created the first search engine in 1990, called Archie. It used a simple program that looked for files on FTP servers, rather than web pages, and indexed their names, not their contents.

Search engines rely on a collection of information, called an index, to provide searchers with relevant results when they enter a query. This index is populated by information submitted by humans, as well as the results of automated programs, such as crawlers and bots. Crawlers are a form of bot that searches the World Wide Web, following web page links and adding new information to the index as it goes along.

As the amount of information on the Internet grows, so do the number and variety of search engines. Many are specialized, designed to be more useful for certain types of information, such as image search engines or job search engines. Others focus on unique formats, such as audio search engines or torrent search engines.

While the results of a search will vary slightly from one search engine to another, there are some universal principles that can be applied to any search engine. In particular, it is very important to be clear and concise with your search terms. GIGO, or garbage in, garbage out, is still very true; search engines are only as good as the keywords that you enter into them. Search engines will return the most relevant results possible, but they can’t do that if your keywords are too broad or ambiguous.