Hi! Thanks for the question.
I will answer your questions in a point-by-point manner. I will try to
provide small snippets of information from the articles I will cite to
save you time but I highly recommend that you read them in their
entirety to get a better grasp of the topic.
1. How have search engines changed the internet?
?As the information content available on the Web grew, the Web public
needed ways to find it. Since all of the information was in digital
form and was generally free to all virtual visitors, creating a
software program to retrieve and index the content was relatively
simple. Dump the indexed files into a database, add Web-based search
capabilities on top, and voila! Finally, an online database with
search features that the general public not only wanted to use, but
clamored to use. So much so, that the database could be supported
merely on advertising dollars.?
?The Web search engines have broad popular appeal. They are the tools
that have finally made end-user searching a reality. And while they
cater to the general public, the Web search engines are increasingly
important tools for the information professional as well. Not ones to
disdain free searching or free information, we make good use of these
search tools, even while we sometimes wish for the precision and
advanced capabilities of our traditional command line systems with
accurate Boolean processing, extensive field searching capabilities,
advanced output and display options, truncation, search saves,
controlled vocabulary, current awareness services, and a targeted
subject focus.?
?Search Engines in the Internet Age?
http://notess.com/write/archive/199905age.html
?The web is transforming society, and the search engines are an
important part of the process. The web and search engines represent a
significant improvement for communication, providing efficient access
to an increasing amount of information.?
?Search engine indexing and ranking may have economic, social,
political, and scientific effects. For example, indexing and ranking
of online stores can substantially effect economic viability; delayed
indexing of scientific research can lead to the duplication of work;
and delayed or biased indexing may affect social or political
decisions.?
?Accessibility and Distribution of Information on the Web?
http://wwwmetrics.com/
?Buried in that vast and rapidly growing collection of documents on
the Internet lies information of interest and use to almost every
accountant. The trick is finding it. This is where search engines play
their critical role.?
?Search engines do not manage information, at least not in the
conventional business sense. They do not, in fact, search the Internet
when the search button is clicked. Their crawlers and spiders have
done their work in advance based on their own criteria and categories
they want to include in their database. Conducting successful searches
is dependent on knowing how the engines work. This knowledge also
helps to get a website noticed by the search engines. ?
?Search engines provide Internet users a tool for locating and
retrieving data from the World Wide Web, based upon keywords supplied
by the user.?
?THE ROLE FOR WEB SEARCH ENGINES?
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2000/0100/f42100a.html
?Google, the world's most-used search engine, has become a fixture of
digital life. Able to instantly search more than 3 billion Web pages
about virtually any subject, Google is altering social and business
habits -- from dating to hiring.?
?For all the reasons that Google draws users -- its speed, its
breadth, its accuracy -- the Mountain View company has increased
expectations about what we can find out about each other. It also has
raised fears about what others can find out about us.?
?In pursuit of privacy, some Web users say they have retooled their
behavior, online and offline. Some have stopped signing petitions and
making political donations, fearing the information will end up
online. Others have asked clubs and churches not to post membership
lists online. People are learning how to protect their personal sites
from search engine Web crawlers.?
?Google's worldwide popularity also has led many who run Web sites to
worry about becoming dependent on Google's search result rankings to
drive traffic to their sites.?
?Google: An engine of change?
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/5789385.htm
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2. How do search engines work?
Before we start on this section, let us first define the different
ways and methodologies on how we can search the web.
Web Directories: (ex. Yahoo) ? These are sites compiled by humans,
categorized into specific topics.
?Because humans compile web directories, a qualitative decision
concerning the content on each listed website has already been made.
Consequently web directories are popular with Internet users looking
for particular information because they feel that they have a head
start in identifying 'the best of the web' for the topic that they're
interested in.?
?As a result of the manual compilation process, web sites that have
been indexed by web directories will remain listed within that
directory, unless, in the highly unlikely event, they are manually
removed. This 'permanence of presence' is not guaranteed with a
listing within a search engine index, thus making a listing within a
popular web directory such as Yahoo! highly desirable.?
Search Engines (ex. Google)
?Search engine databases are primarily built up by 'spiders'.
Dispatched on an automatic and frequent basis by search engines,
spiders are programmes that search the web for new web pages, index
words and/or links on those pages, and match the indexed words with
the URL of the page on which they appear.?
?This is the main element of any search engine - it is what the user
interrogates. Once it could be said that these indexes where built
along similar guidelines, with the location and frequency of words the
primary determining factors in results relevance ranking.?
?All search engines have their own customised software to interrogate
their databases. Essentially though, they operate according to similar
principles: any web site which contains words or terms that match the
user's search query will be presented in the list of results presented
on screen to the user.?
?The evolution of web searching - Section two - Search engines and Web directories?
http://www.davidgreen.me.uk/oirapr00sec2.html
My favorite ?How Stuff Works? provides an easy and interesting article
on how the search engines work. Building upon our knowledge given by
the previous article we can see that spiders, databases and database
software are essential to a search engine?s work.
a. Crawling the Web
?How does any spider start its travels over the Web? The usual
starting points are lists of heavily used servers and very popular
pages. The spider will begin with a popular site, indexing the words
on its pages and following every link found within the site. In this
way, the spidering system quickly begins to travel, spreading out
across the most widely used portions of the Web.?
b. Storing the Information:
?Once the spiders have completed the task of finding information on
Web pages (and we should note that this is a task that is never
actually completed -- the constantly changing nature of the Web means
that the spiders are always crawling), the search engine must store
the information in a way that makes it useful.?
?To make for more useful results, most search engines store more than
just the word and URL. An engine might store the number of times that
the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each
entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near
the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the meta tags
or in the title of the page. Each commercial search engine has a
different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index.?
?An index has a single purpose: It allows information to be found as
quickly as possible. There are quite a few ways for an index to be
built, but one of the most effective ways is to build a hash table. In
hashing, a formula is applied to attach a numerical value to each
word. The formula is designed to evenly distribute the entries across
a predetermined number of divisions. This numerical distribution is
different from the distribution of words across the alphabet, and that
is the key to a hash table's effectiveness.?
?How Internet Search Engines Work?
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search-engine.htm/printable
c. Database Software to Query Data:
?Search engine software is the third part of a search engine. This is
the program that sifts 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.?
?How Search Engines Work?
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2168031
d. Ranking Results
?One of the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location
and frequency of keywords on a web page. Call it the
location/frequency method, for short.?
?Search engines will also check to see if the search keywords appear
near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first
few paragraphs of text. They assume that any page relevant to the
topic will mention those words right from the beginning.?
?Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine
relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in
relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency
are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.?
?How Search Engines Rank Web Pages?
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167961
In case you would like to determine the features of the different
search engines, our next two articles will be nice to read. The
articles discuss how to maximize the potential of search engines both
from the web builder and end-user?s point of view.
?Search Engine Features For Webmasters?
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167891
?Search Features Chart?
http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2155981
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3. How have search engines affected internet marketing?
Search Engines have affected internet marketing in an unprecedented
way. It seems that now businesses have put a lot of value to their
placements on the rankings of search engines. The statistics below
show way there is such concern for companies to place high on Search
Engines.
?According to a survey by the Georgia Institute of Technology, more
than 86% of all people find out about other sites through the search
engines.?
?A survey conducted by Forrester Research asked web users what they
rated as the most effective way of getting them to a web site in the
first place. 57% replied search engine positioning, 38% replied email,
35% replied external links, and 28% replied word of mouth.?
?That is the reason another study by ActivMedia Research shows that
66% of online marketers find that search engine positioning drives
traffic. A top ranking in the search engines can bring you highly
targeted traffic.?
?Importance of Search Engine Positioning?
http://www.areyouranking.com/importance.html
?Online shoppers who use shopping search engines are 22% more
satisfied with their online buying experience and 26% more likely to
recommend online shopping than those that do not use such search
engines, reports ForeSee Results.?
?ForeSee also found that the main reasons online shoppers use shopping
search engines are for comparison shopping -- to compare prices
quickly (73%), to compare products (54%) and even to compare the
reputations of online stores (25%).?
?Shopping Search Engine Users?
http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=4102
?Studies show that consumers are 5 times more likely to purchase goods
or services as a result of finding a site through a search engine
listing.?
?The Importance of SEO to your website?
http://www.siteposition.ca/website-promotion-importance-of-seo.html
?Over 75% of Web users employ search engines (RealNames survey).?
?45.8% of Web users cite search engines as #1 choice for finding Web
sites (IMT Strategies). ?
?What Does SEO mean? ?What is ?Search Engine Optimization?
http://www.siteposition.ca/what-is-search-engine-optimization-seo.html
?Jupiter pegs the paid search market as worth $1.6 billion this year,
after growing at a 48 percent clip. Over the next five years, the
researcher expects spending on search to increase by a compound annual
rate of more than 20 percent. In 2008, Jupiter forecasts companies
will spend $4.3 billion on search, accounting for 29 percent of the
$14.8 billion online advertising market.?
?While small companies pioneered the search industry, drawn by
pay-for-performance deals that fit their modest marketing budgets,
Jupiter expects a shift to big-budget advertisers. In its April 2003
survey of marketing executives, 82 percent from large companies and 61
percent from smaller companies surveyed by Jupiter said they were
poised to bump up their spending on search marketing.?
?Search Powers Online Ad Revival?
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/advertising/article/0,,5941_2242141,00.html
----------------------------------------
Reasons for the Popularity of Search Engine Marketing:
?Why are companies continuing to spend significant amounts of money on
traditional online advertising methods, when Jupiter Research recently
found that 76% of marketers believe that search engine marketing (SEM)
is more effective? This statistic reflects the incredible growth of
search marketing in the past 18 months, driven by the likes of Google,
Espotting and Overture which have turned the world of online
advertising on its head.?
?So why has search marketing become such a powerful tool? Quite
simply, search engines are the doorways to the online world for most
consumers, with IDC estimating that 84% of surfers gain access to
Internet content through a search engine. The power of search engines
to deliver high volumes of responsive traffic to sites is well
understood.?
?The most compelling argument for marketers to adopting the search
marketing approach is the measurable return on investment (ROI) . The
most popular and fastest growing search marketing model is
cost-per-click (CPC). With the CPC approach, advertisers only pay when
a user actually clicks through to their site. The rankings of the
search results will be ordered according to a live auction with those
companies prepared to pay the most CPC appearing at the top.?
?That said, the brand building potential of search marketing shouldn't
be ignored and can be particularly important for new entrants into a
market or small companies with small marketing budgets. Through the
use of search, these types of companies can appear alongside the big
brands in search listings and as a result build brand awareness.?
?Search Engine Marketing - Category Killer??
http://www.sempo.org/sem-article-searching-for-results.php
Our next two articles will provide the techniques and costs you need
to know in search engine marketing.
?Buying Your Way In: Search Engine Advertising Chart?
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167941
?Your Search Engine Submission Budget?
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167841
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4. What is search engine optimization?
?Search engine optimization is the process of selecting appropriate
keyword phrases for a specific site and enhancing aspects of the site
to ensure high rankings when the selected keyword phrases are used in
a particular Internet search.?
?Search Engine Optimization ? An Overview?
http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/search-engine-optimization-overview.html
?Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is part of the search engine
marketing process -- specifically the part that makes sure your site
has all the right elements necessary for higher search engine
ranking.?
?Optimizing a Web site involves researching the most effective
keywords for your site, then implementing those keywords into the
site"s content and code. Site optimization also involves understanding
the elements of site design, linking structures, as well as how search
engines and directories function.?
?What are SEM and SEO??
http://www.thewebmark.com/seo-overview.htm
SEO TIPS:
?Each page in your web site will have different target keywords that
reflect the page's content. For example, say you have another page
about the history of stamps. Then "stamp history" might be your
keywords for that page.?
?Your target keywords should always be at least two or more words
long. Usually, too many sites will be relevant for a single word, such
as "stamps." This "competition" means your odds of success are lower.
Don't waste your time fighting the odds. Pick phrases of two or more
words, and you'll have a better shot at success.?
?Make sure your target keywords appear in the crucial locations on
your web pages. The page's HTML title tag is most important. Failure
to put target keywords in the title tag is the main reason why
perfectly relevant web pages may be poorly ranked.?
?Changing your page titles is not necessarily going to help your page
do well for your target keywords if the page has nothing to do with
the topic. Your keywords need to be reflected in the page's content.?
?In particular, that means you need HTML text on your page. Sometimes
sites present large sections of copy via graphics. It looks pretty,
but search engines can't read those graphics. That means they miss out
on text that might make your site more relevant. Some of the search
engines will index ALT text and comment information. But to be safe,
use HTML text whenever possible. Some of your human visitors will
appreciate it, also.?
?Search Engine Placement Tips?
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2168021
Our next articles will provide additional tips on how to place highly
on search engines.
?How To Use HTML Meta Tags?
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167931
?Submitting To Crawlers: Google, Inktomi, AllTheWeb, Teoma & AltaVista?
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167871
?Submitting To Directories: Yahoo, LookSmart & The Open Directory?
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167881
Search strategy used:
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