Search Engine Overview

Directories--Indices of web pages organized into categories.  The listings are typically reviewed by humans, so the pages tend to be of higher quality, in general, than the average page indexed by a search engine.

Search Engines--Special web sites designed to serve as searchable "indices" for the WWW. Search engines typically employ computer programs that continually collect information about web pages and organize this information in a searchable database.  (These programs are sometimes called "spiders"--they traverse all (or at least many) of  the branches of the web that connects web pages, following from link to link, much as a spider could walk the strands of its web.)

Note: Many search web sites are now hybrids of directories and "search engines"--they have both directories maintained by humans and searchable indices maintained by computer programs.

Meta-Search Engine--A special kind of search engine that submits a search request to several search engines simultaneously and displays the results in one page. For more info, see:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/MetaSearch.html

For an overview of several popular search engines, see:

• http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/ToolsTables.html

See also:

• Search Engines and Other Research Tools
• Using the Internet for Research
• Tips for Using Internet Explorer for Internet Research

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