What Are Different Types of Search Engines - A Complete Guide
Understand the types of search engines that can help you to find exactly
what you want to know on the web. Right from Google to Bing and Ask
Yahoo!
Here you can find various search engines and their benefits.
In this digitally transformed world, it’s easy to search for anything on the web
today. This is all because of the availability of search engines. Whatever you want
to find on the internet, you can use search engines. Right from Google to Bing and
Ask Yahoo! you can see numerous options for search engines. Do you know which search
engine to use for your queries? Well, there are different types of search engines
that can help you to find exactly what you want to know on the web.
Major Types of Search Engines
Search engines play a crucial role in finding something on the web or optimizing a
web
page's ranking. Let’s have a close look at different kinds of
search engines and their
benefits:
Crawler-Based Search Engines
Crawler-based search engines aka spider search engines, this sort of search engine
mainly use a bot or spider to scan web pages. Bots, crawlers, or spiders that are
used for searching websites and results are mainly software programs. In this type
of search engine, the crawler scans various links to websites, gathers information
about websites, and then it indexes the information as a result.
The purpose of this search engine is to index the websites’ contents from across the
internet. Because of this, relevant websites can appear in search engine results.
Some
search engine examples of this type of search engine are Bing and Google that is
used by
millions of users every day. According to the Global search engine
market share report
2022, more than 94 percent market share belongs to Google.
Here’s why the crawler-based search engine is the most used:
It’s super easy to use.
Consists of a vast amount of web pages for precise search results.
Familiarity of users with Google as the most common crawler-based search
engine.
Human-powered Directories
Other crucial types of search engines are human-powered directories which work as
internet search tools. It helps in searching for information by subject categories.
In this type of search engine, there won’t be the usage of a spider, crawler, or any
other software program to scan websites. Rather than software programs, this search
engine uses web directories that are created by human editors.
As the name suggests, the data in this search engine is maintained by humans only.
Though this search engine has many benefits, it is still not in much use as crawler
ones. Automated search engines such as crawler ones have to remove directories from
the web. Let’s have a look at how this search engine works:
In human-powered directories, the owner of the website submits a short
description of its site to the directory. Along with the description, the
category will also be submitted.
After the site’s submission, a manual review process takes place to either
approve or reject the listing. If there’s any need then the editorial staff
will add the appropriate category to the site.
Whatever keywords the site owner has entered in a search box, it is matched
with the site’s description. It is only the description that matters during
the search.
Advantages of human-powered directories
s to search things quickly as it has fewer results.
The editor will review each page well for surety of safety search.
Hybrid Search Engine
Among different types of search engines, hybrid search engines are also crucial. As
the name suggests, this search engine has the feature of both manual indexing and
crawler- based for site listing on the search results. In simple words, it is an
amalgamation of directory and crawler-based search engines.
Google is one of the most common crawler search engines in which the crawlers are
used as
a primary mechanism. Whereas, human-powered directories are used as the secondary
mechanism. One crucial thing to keep in mind is that more search engines are now
shifting
to a hybrid model. Human directories are somewhat disappearing so most users use
hybrid
or crawler-based search engines opined an SEO expert
in Bangalore.
Meta Search Engine
A meta-search engine is mainly a web portal that collects the search results for
keywords or phrases. With the help of a proprietary algorithm, meta-search engine
searches result from different search engines. In simpler work, it will take the
results from different search engines and then will combine them to form one big
listing. The main work of this Metasearch is to retrieve data from different search
engines. Let’s see how this search engine works:
In this search engine, a user first creates a request for the search. Then,
the search engine sends the requests from the search slot to numerous other
search engines.
ow, the metasearch engine server will have to wait for answers that it has
requested from others search engines.
After this, the results will be available which are according to other
search engines’ guidelines and algorithms.
During the search, the duplicate results will be filtered out so one URL
doesn’t appear twice in the search result.
Advantages of Meta search engine:
The meta-search engine has an unlimited knowledge base as it uses different
search engines to get the search results.
There is no chance to skip any crucial information during the search as it
uses various other search engines.
Another crucial advantage of this search engine is that it can save you
time. With this, you don’t have to go through multiple search engines to
compare the results.
One of the vital advantages of meta-search engines is that it offers privacy
to a search. It can hide the IP address of the user from the search engine.
Conclusion
Various types of search engines are there that have their features and benefits.
Today, the most commonly used search engine is the crawler-based search engine that
uses the advanced techniques of AI and bots. Earlier, human directories were a great
option for searching anything on the web.
