Some of them assess popularity by the number of links that are pointing to sites. The more links, the greater the popularity, i.e., value of the page. Search engines are best at finding unique keywords, phrases, quotes, and information buried in the full-text of web pages. Because they index word by word, search engines are also useful in retrieving tons of documents. If you want a wide range of responses to specific queries, use a search engine.
Search engines no longer limit themselves to a search mechanism alone.
Across the Web, they are partnering with subject directories, or creating their own directories, and returning results gathered from a variety of other guides and services as well. University of South Carolina. JMU Libraries . All rights reserved.