Technical background of the operation of internet search engines

Abstract

The essay provides an overview of the essential components of search engines and of the tasks they perform. It describes in detail the activities of search robots harvesting web pages, and discusses the importance of data files storing the web pages harvested. It summarises the tasks of indexers who analyse and extract relevant expressions from the web pages visited. Search engines primarily identify the indexed documents exactly matching the search questions. Ranking by various aspects is another major characteristic of their operation. The essay lists the main principles of ranking hits, generally applied by search engines. Currently, the PageRank algorithm of Google enjoys special attention, and the essay presents a corrected version of the one spread in the library profession. The underlying idea of this algorithm is described, and how it models the behaviour of an „accidental surfer”. Finally, it tackles various problems related to internet-based searching, and the relevant solution attempts offered.