Searching For Something...

Internet search engines are special sites on the Web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. Some world renowned search engines include anzwers, askjeeves, yahoo and probably the most prominant out of the lot, google.



1. How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?
They follow a set of rules, known as an algorithm. One of the the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web site. Search engines will also scan to see if the proposed keywords come up near the top of a site, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyse how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often considered more relevant than other web pages, hence why they are are ranked higher. There is a lot more to how search engines rank content out there in cyberspace, but these are the main factors.

2. who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?
I've always believed that the first few pages that pop after up you search for something are the most relevent and useful sites. However, this may not always be the case and it can take some further searching to determine whether or not these sources are trustworthy. I think pages and sites that allow user feedback and comments to be posted are very handy because it gives the public an opinion of the site content and it isn't just biased information because you can read what other users have written in regards to the information displayed on the site.

3. what are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?
I have never really had a 'favourite' search engine, but I tend to use Google the most. I suppose it's simple and easy to access and I have been using it ever since I can remember. I also like Anzwers because it's Australian and New Zealand based. From the previous "Scavenger Hunt" task, I found Yahoo Answers to be quite good because it's very 'public oriented' and allows the general public to share their knowledge and ideas with other users around the globe.