Advanced Search Engine Lingo
Algorithm: This is a mathematical system that's used to determine which Web pages are used in search results.
Boolean Search: A Boolean search involves searching with words like AND, OR, NOT. Using these words and other similar words can help you get more specific results. For example, if you're looking for info on pop music, enter pop AND music and you'll get a list of sites that include both those words, not just one of them.
Direct Hit: This is a counting system that counts the number of times a site has been clicked on in different search engine results. The amount of clicks are then added up to determine a Web site's ranking in the search results.
Meta Search Engine: This is a search engine that looks up keywords in a bunch of other search engines and then combines the results. These engines are called metacrawlers. Besides Dogpile, another metacrawler is www.metacrawler.com.
Meta Search: A search of searches. Your keyword or phrase is searched in more than one search engine or directory and the results come from all the engines. There are several search engines that specifically do meta searches, such as Dogpile.
Spider: This is the software used by search engines. It crawls through the Web, scanning documents and then adding them to an index by going from link to link. Search engines are occasionally (and incorrectly) called spiders.
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