What is a Search Engine?

A search engine is a type of software that creates indexes of web sites based on the titles of the web pages and the content of the web pages. It creates a database of web sites by searching the web with a program called a spider.

The search engine has an interface that allows users to search its database by typing in words or phrases related to what they’re looking for. The search engine returns results based on something called an algorithm, which is a very complex formula that determines the order of those results.