As I started my formal learning in understanding how search engines work, I made note of following items. Posting for those who are beginning in online marketing or learning about the web.
Terms to know
1. Search Engines
The major search engine in the market today is Google, followed by a distant second Bing (a Microsoft product). Search engine is a tool which users on web use to search relevant information.
2. SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
This is the page that shows up when enter a search terms (the topic you want to know more about). Default SERP in Google shows up 10 results. You can view more results on a page by choosing advanced search option.
3. Crawling (done by search bots)
It is a function of a Search Engine (Google, Bing etc.) in which robots (known as search bots) crawl a web page frequently especially when a web page is updated. This is how the new content shows up in various search engines.
4. Web Cache
Cache restores the information served through the browser in memory for some period of time.
5. Index
It is a kind of natural function through which WebPages get indexed to show properly in SERP. One useful site is www.google.com/webmasters
Google Search Engine has its Algorithms and Norms to give appropriate positions to WebPages in SERP. We will discuss this further in future.