What is a Search Engine? – Definition
A search engine is a software system, thanks to which Internet users can search for information relevant to them. Search engines collect and organize all necessary data and then release it to users after entering a given query in the search box.
Search Engine in Practice
Let’s assume that you are looking for a cinema nearby. And although typing a given query into the Internet search engine box doesn’t seem to be anything complicated, the mechanism of the search engine itself is far more complex.
In order to get search results, the following steps must occur: crawling (searching for new pages), indexing (creating a database of keywords), and ranking (displaying search results in order from most to least accurate). Various sophisticated algorithms decide which websites appear high in search results.
Search Engine Market Share Worldwide
For many years now, Google has been the absolute leader among search engines worldwide. In September 2020, it held as much as 92.26% of the search engine market share. Google dominates in many countries around the world. However, in some countries, other search engines are also very popular. Among them, there are search engines such as: