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Internet Search Engines

Moving around the world wide web can look daunting initially, especially if you are unsure what to look for and where to find it. Luckily for all of us there are brilliant websites called Search Engines. There are many of them and some of them are 'country specific', particularly in places like Australia and New Zealand.

That's not to say there aren't UK-specific search engines, there certainly are, just less of them. So what is a Search Engine? Quite simply it's a massive collection of websites that have been visited by a Search Engine 'spider' who wanders around the site picking up 'keywords' from the script (or text) and from the keywords placed in a special area in the 'head' section of the website. You can't see the 'head' section of a site, it's hidden in the HTML. The best way to see it is by clicking on View, then from the drop down box click on 'Source'. A new mini-window will open which you can expand to full size. In this box you will see all the scripts and HTML that make the site work, toward the top of the page in a line probably titled 'Meta Name="keywords"...' which will list a load of words that are relevant to that site. This is what the 'spider' reads.

If you are writing your own site, make sure the words are relevant, don't try and fool the spider by adding catchy words that strange people search for like 'sexy', 'free', 'blondes' and so on, it won't work. In fact, it has the opposite effect, you are less likely to get listed if you do this!

Back to what a search engine does. You can look at it like they are massive 'Yellow Pages' if you like. They catalogue websites so that when you type in your search criteria they return huge lists of websites that match your search enquiry. It's as simple as that! The results can be interesting, especially when you are vague about what you are looking for. For example, let's say you asked about 'Cricket' (and why not indeed?), you will initially get websites back dealing with the game, but you may also get nature websites as well. You may also get results from a small village in Devon called Cricket St Thomas, so it pays to be more specific when you type in your search.

There are many search engines, some, as I mentioned earlier, are 'country-specific', and here is a small selection:

Phew! There are, as you can see, many search engines to choose from. We have listed as many as we know, but as with all things Internet, some may have gone, some taken over by larger search engines companies, and so on. If they are no longer available, please let us know!