Site search results come to us in many different ways. The most-used search engines are Google, Yahoo! MSN and Bing. But what is the difference between them? There has to be a reason why these are the top search engines used, right? Well, here are some little tidbits you may, or may not have known about these popular search engine empires.

Have you ever sat down at your computer to look for something through a search engine, and wondered why the results show up in the fashion and order that they do? Well it isn't just a random sampling of items out there on the World Wide Web, as some may think. There is a very exact formula that goes into how search engines, such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing, come up with their results on any particular search. Although all search engines have unique functions, there are three basic steps that all search engines use to help come up with their results:

1.       Based on the words you are searching for, the search engine then looks through the internet, or certain parts of it.

2.       The Search Engine then creates a list of the appropriate words they find & where they find them to create an index.

3.       Then this creates the basis for which users can search for those particular words.

There are also three different types of search engines: 1) Robot-based, 2) Human-based, and 3) A hybrid of the two. The robot-based (known better as "Crawlers") will automatically scan websites for certain keywords, and then indexes them for future searches. Human-based search engines basically do the same, but rely on humans to do the work. With the software advances of today, and the inclusion of human beings helping, the third type of hybrid search engine will typically give the best results.

So clearly, the way search engines function is a much more enigmatic process than one small article can really convey. Comment and let us know other topics you'd like to read about, or if simply you'd like more information on this topic!