Searching the World Wide Web
Computer Science: KS3, topic 5.1.8
Searching the World Wide Web
There is a huge amount of information on the World Wide Web. Not all information is useful and some of it is wrong. You need to know how to search well to make sure the information is high quality.
Search engines
- Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia are examples of search engines. Search engines work by searching for web pages.
- Searching for web pages is called ‘crawling’.
Searching for matching words
- When you put words into a search engine, the search engine finds a list of pages that match the words you used.
- The search engine ranks (puts in order) the pages based on:
- How closely your search matches the page.
- The popularity of the page.
Choosing the page you want
- The page highest on the list may not be the best page for your search.
Test yourself on Searching the World Wide Web
What do search engines search for?
What word describes searching for web pages?
Search engines rank the pages from search results, but is the highest page on the list always the best page for your search?