Because there are millions of Web sites available on the Internet, with more being added every day, search tools play an important role in retrieving information from the Web. The major Web search tools are search engines, metasearch engines, and directories.
Using search engines, metasearch engines, and directories
Search engines are programs that “crawl” or “spider” the Web looking for matches to a search and then ranking the results by relevancy. Although all search engines perform the same function, they don't work in exactly the same way. The same search in two different search engines may retrieve different results.
Metasearch engines allow searches to be sent to more than one search engine at once. The results are then compiled on one page.
Unlike search engines, which compile their results automatically, directories are collections of Web sites that have been selected by people. Web sites included in directories are organized by topic, and have been chosen for their reliability.
