See: Search engines

Snippet from Wikipedia: Search engine

The term search engine refers to a search application that provides links to web pages and other relevant information on the Web (or the Internet in general) in response to a user's query. Users submit their queries through a web browser or a mobile app, and the results page generally displays a collection of hyperlinks together with brief descriptions and relevant images. Users also have the option of limiting a search to specific types of results, such as images, videos, or news.

For a search provider, its engine is part of a distributed computing system that can encompass many data centers throughout the world. The speed and accuracy of an engine's response to a query are based on a complex system of indexing that is continuously updated by automated web crawlers. This can include data mining the files and databases stored on web servers, although some content is not accessible to crawlers.

There have been many search engines since the dawn of the Web in the 1990s; Google Search became the dominant one in the 2000s and has remained so. As of May 2025, according to StatCounter, Google held approximately 89–90 % of the worldwide search share, with competitors trailing far behind: Bing (~4 %), Yandex (~2.5 %), Yahoo! (~1.3 %), DuckDuckGo (~0.8 %), and Baidu (~0.7 %). May 2025 marked the first time in over a decade that Google's share has fallen below the 90% threshold.

Because of its market share, the discipline of websites improving their visibility in search results, known as marketing and optimization, has historically largely focused on Google.

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