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The WAIS search engine receives a user’s question, searches its database for documents most relevant to the question, and returns a relevance-ranked list of documents back to the user. Each document is given a score from 1 to 1000, based on how well it matched the user’s question (how many words it contained, their importance in the document, etc.). |
The first popular Internet search engine was the Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) system. The pages linked below describe some of the current leading search sites, including a link to their advanced search page and a feature summary. Most of these sites also provide both a web directory and a search engine:
- Google *
- Yahoo *
Resources. Related resources are listed below:
- Usenet archives – lists sites for searching the Usenet newsgroups.
- Search Engine Sizes – lists the size of leading search engine’s databases.
- Ranking.com – Provides a ranking of web sites by popularity of access, a metric significantly driven by the traffic from leading search engines.
- Specialized search sites provide more targeted search functionality.