What do search engines find? (11/19)

If you enter your search terms into the search field of a general search engine such as Google, you will retrieve a high number of results. The reason behind it is that search engines scan Internet pages with the help of a programme called a “web crawler”. The programme is constantly and automatically browsing the web, following every hyperlink, and saving all the information it finds, i.e. all words and characters on the webpages it visits. Search engines then use this information to find and sort results for your search query.

Each search engine uses its own algorithm to rank the results. Google, for example, employs PageRank (named after Larry Page and not after ranking pages) which takes into account how many other pages point to a given page. The pages often mentioned by other pages are considered popular and are, thus, presented to you first.