Search engine is basically a software program. Search Engine as the name suggests is a mechanized product that is used for searching data, information, sites based on the words that you designate as search terms. When you press enter after typing your search terms search engine look into its own databases of information in order to find what it is that you are looking for. Search engines help people to organize and display information in a way which makes it readily accessible.

Basically it is a set of programs. These programs are then used to search for information within a specific area and pull together that information in a database. Generally people refer the term only for internet search engines, a search engine which is specifically designed to search the Internet. But search engines can also be devised for offline content.

“Search engine” is the term often used generically to describe all types of search engines. And of them gather their listings in radically different ways. Following are different types of search engines :-

- Crawler-Based Search Engines

- Human-Powered Directories

- “Hybrid Search Engines” Or Mixed Results

Search engines are not simple. They include incredibly detailed processes and methodologies, and are updated all the time. A search engine work to retrieve your search results. All search engines go by this basic process when conducting search processes, but because there are differences in search engines, there are bound to be different results depending on which engine you use.

Working of Search Engines:

1. The searcher types a query into a search engine.

2. Search engine software quickly sorts through literally millions of pages in its database to find  matches to this query.

3. The search engine’s results are ranked in order of relevancy.

Search engine software is just the third part of a search engine. Search engine software is the program that browses through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant.