When we start doing promotions online, all digital marketers will definitely be familiar with the word Googling or Search Engine. This topic is one of the favourite topics for business opportunities obtained when our business site has been optimized for search engines.

Does this article aim to reveal to you what a search engine is? How does it work? And what we need to do to get the maximum benefit from it as business people or marketers.

What is a search engine?

In general, digital marketers will connect the word search engine with Google. The branding is not wrong, because based on the statscounter.com site, Google controls most of the market share of search engine users except china with Baidu and Russia with Yandex, more than 98% in Indonesia.

But actually, there are many search engines or web browsers besides Google.

The first search engine in the world is Archie, launched in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal, United States. The name Archie itself is an abbreviation of the English “Archives ” which means file. Google itself was launched only 8 years later, namely 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and currently continues to develop into the world’s most popular search engine.

Google’s First Look – 1998

Search Engine Functions and Benefits

According to the official explanation from Wikipedia, a web search engine or web search engine is a computer program designed to search for files stored on www (world wide web), FTP, mailing list publications, or newsgroups on one or several server computers. In a network.

From the above definition, the search engine function was originally used to provide information from the database that is owned. Although it seems simple in practice, it is not the case, because it takes hundreds of algorithms to determine the interest and intent of the information seeker.

In line with the development of technology, big data, artificial intelligence, and automatic learning (machine learning). The benefits of search engines, which were only used as web document explorers, have now become highly developed with powerful features such as Answering questions and providing recommendations.

Even in many cases of searching on the internet, many Google users end up not browsing the recommended sites, because, in the search results, Google can immediately answer their needs.

Search engine alternatives to Google

Apart from Google, 4 alternative search engines occupy Indonesia’s internet users’ top 5 market share.

**Bing (bing.com, Market Share 0.46% per August 2020 *)**

Developed by Microsoft, which previously developed other search engines, namely Live Search and MSN Search, after purchasing a search technology called PowerSet. Bing’s ability is quite capable because searches can be done for Sites, Images, News Sites, and Xrank (search based on user behaviour)

July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced to the public that Bing is also the Yahoo Search service’s basic engine.

**Yahoo Search (search.yahoo.com, Market Share 0.79% *)**

Yahoo was originally developed more like a Web Directory and not as a search engine. However, the collaboration with Microsoft in 2009 made Yahoo an alternative search engine used in Indonesia. Yahoo’s strong branding strength makes Yahoo Search have a bigger market share than Bing, even though it uses the same search algorithm.

**Yandex Search (yandex.com, Market Share 0.3% *)**

Yandex is a Russian-based company that also develops a web search engine that focuses on realtime searches such as news sites. In 2009 Yandex launches Net Matrix technology, a machine learning method ( machine learning ) can compete with the technology developed by Google. In Russia alone, the use of Yandex Search has exceeded 60%.

**Duckduck Go (duckduckgo.com, Market Share 0.19% *)**

Of all the search engines written in this article, duckduckgo is an example of a search engine that offers a unique user experience as a private search engine. Duckduckgo promises they do not collect personal information, browser data, and only IP addresses hidden in encrypted technology. Launched on February 29, 2008, duckduckgo currently processes more than 50 million searches every day.

With its uniqueness in the algorithm developed by search engines. It’s a good idea to try yourself, which algorithm best answers your search.

How Does Search Engine Work?

Search engine work is through 3 stages, namely Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking.

In the Crawling phase, the search engine will activate a web browser application to view the site’s data structure and links. Links on the site both internally and externally will serve as a reference for future search destinations. This search application is usually also known as a Crawler or Spider.

The next phase is Indexing, which collects all search results data in one location; this is where the BIG Data is from each search engine.

The last phase is the ranking (algorithm) phase, which is when search engines get requests for information (commonly called queries ) by users. The search engine algorithms will try to provide information according to the information requests needed. Especially for Google, it is currently claimed that there are more than 200 algorithms to determine what information is displayed when Google users perform searches.

Google Search Engine Features

In the Google search engine, as of 2020, there are at least 16 features in 4 categories to help users find the information they need. The 4 categories are

Rich Snippets, to visually clarify information. One form is a starred review)
Paid Result, to display Google Ads ads
Universal Results, to display document search results in a different format other than site references, for example, image search results, article fragments (commonly called snippets)
Knowledge Graph, a common explanation panel to the right of search results

Following are the features of the popular Google Search Engine

Google Ads (Top or Bottom / Above or Below search results)

Showing Google SEM Ads

Shopping Ads

Shows Google Shopping ads

Feature Snippet

Also called Zero (0) Position, it displays a summary of the solution from the search results

Local Map Pack

Recipes Pack

Shows reviews of popular food recipes according to search

Video Pack

Displays videos relevant to the search

Image Pack

displays relevant images according to search

Knowledge Card

Provides General Information in Search Results

Knowledge Panel

Business Information from Google My Business or Trusted Sites Like Wikipedia

Optimization for search engines

To be recommended by search engines, webmasters or site owners, usually make a series of efforts to make the resulting web pages more relevant to the target market. This optimization activity is usually known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Broadly speaking, this activity optimizes the Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking phases. Google never gives definite steps on how a site can be optimized to increase the top position’s ranking in search results on Google. But broadly speaking, the resulting site must have the following criteria:

Become a solution for Google users
Well Structured and Easy to use (Usability) – On-Page SEO
Has no technical problems (Error) – Technical SEO
From reliable sources (not hoaxes) and get references from other trusted sites ( Off-page SEO )

If you want to discuss with the Doxadigital team, about how SEO can play a role in improving the performance of your business visit our SEO services

Hexaseo.com

6 Things You Need To Know About Search Engines