Definition of search engine

A search engine or search engine is a system or software application that allows you to search for all terms and key words from the development of indexes of files stored on web servers. In computer science, a search engine is a system that operates indexing files and data on the web to facilitate the search for the same terms and concepts relevant to the user just enter a keyword. Entering the term, the application returns a list of Web addresses in which this word is included or mentioned.
The use of web search engines has become one of the main reasons for using the Internet, facilitating the gathering of information and the work investigative in nature but also with social, recreational and personal purposes.
Typically, the search engines are either search engines, i.e. databases that incorporate new terms in constant and automatically, or thematic indexes, systems that require a manual and human component for income and allocation of web sites to keywords and categories.
There are different types of applications considered by search engines. There are hierarchical search engines, also called spiders or spiders, directories, mixed search engine and directory, meta search engines, vertical search engines and many others.
Among the most popular search engines to date can be counted, of course, Google, Yahoo, Visual Finder, Rollyo, Ask, Altavista, and thousands of others.
Currently Google the most famous and most widely used, it should be detailing its performance characteristics. Google's system is based on the concept of popularity known as PageRank, which determines that the pages which will appear higher in the results listings are those that have more links from other web sites. In addition to this aspect, there are many other criteria that underlie the Google search algorithm and which have become the most popular (and most imitated) search engine of all time.