Talk:Search engine

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 5 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): TaeAndrews.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Go.com is 1998 and not 1994
See the wiki about go.com

Yahoo! and Bing
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Yahoo!'s own search engine discontinued and replaced by Bing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supertanno (talk • contribs) 16:00, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Why no mention of OpenText?
OpenText Corp., an enterprise content management company based in Waterloo, Ontario, claims to have invented the first search engine technology. The company, co-founded by Tim Bray, grew out of a research project at the University of Waterloo begun in the late 1980s to digitize the Oxford English Dictionary. Out of that, the company claims, came the "first search engine technology" which Bray sought to commercialize by incorporating OpenText in 1991. OpenText's search engine was eventually adopted by Yahoo!, one of the company's early customers. Anthony reinhart (talk) 02:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC) In this YouTube video, the people involved with the University of Waterloo/Oxford Dictionary project discuss the birth of what they call the first search engine.

Blippex
Interesting - I see that there is no mention of Blippex on here despite claims in a number of places on the web that it is the new google. Accepting that those sort of claims are usually rubbish it still seems an important development. I'm not used to googling something and not finding a Wiki page! Cheers --146.90.197.165 (talk) 09:12, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Raging
Altavista's albeit brief attempt to take on Google in 2000 deserves a mention. --В²C ☎ 01:00, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * "AltaVista is Raging"
 * "AltaVista Says Its New Search Engine 20% Faster Than Rivals'"
 * "Raging Search Gone Too"
 * "The Free Search"

Internet Key Layers
This article's lede image File:Internet_Key_Layers.png has been added to several pages by its creator - is it original research? It's neither sourced nor summarising sourced material in the article: the article doesn't use the word "layers", and with its vague talk of "breakthroughs" the list implies that search engines were invented by Google in 1998. Should it be reworked or removed? --McGeddon (talk) 13:05, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I am the person who posted the image in question. It presents very basic info.  In response to the question about references, I posted a link at the bottom of the image's Description section.  It links to a graphic that is perfectly in line with this new image.  Nothing earth shattering here, as far as I see.--Concord hioz (talk) 13:27, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It links to a diagram of the layers of the OSI model, a model which explicitly uses the term "layers". Are you basing this diagram on a similar pre-existing model, or deciding on your own initiative to adopt the same terminology and apply it to what you think of as the six "key layers" of the internet, in a particular (chronological?) sequence? --McGeddon (talk) 13:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This diagram is not saying that these are the six layers of the internet. It is merely highlighting six.  It is not saying that there are not any more, nor is it saying that it could not be understood as having less.  If a criticism is that it needs to show seven layers, then I would agree.  Image has now been revised to include the content layer as well.  There are many various descriptions that have been made, of which the OSI model is only one.  And while there are many models, every single one of these models correlate to each other, because they are all modeling the same thing - the Internet.  All of them are factually accurate, or they would be discarded as inaccurate.  Each have their own utility for their audience.  Many are at a level that would require membership in IEEE in order to understand them.  For the ordinary person, much confusion abounds.  Most people don't know the distinction between the Internet and the WWW.  In a simple glance at this one, readers can gain an accurate understanding.
 * As for the dates and names on the sides, it is not ordered chronologically. Take, for example, the fact that the Apple I came after Ethernet.  The side info is included so as to provide context.  Also added to the current revision are headers to that side info, to clearly label these dates and people as milestones, and not necessarily points of invention.--Concord hioz (talk) 03:08, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I should also add that absolutely no implication of invention is intended. It is not saying that Conrad Zuse invented the computer, for example.  All technologies listed in the image were accomplished by a complex series of inventions.  Clearly Brin & Page did *not* invent internet search.  What the image is intending to highlight is that 1998 was a pivotal year regarding that technology.--Concord hioz (talk) 13:31, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I share McGeddon's concerns. ARK (talk) 12:08, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, one concern is completeness. There are models that list seven layers.  If a criticism of the diagram is that it was not complete, then my response is that I agree.  I have revised the diagram so that it shows the 'content' layer, which previously had only been implied.  Surely it is better to explicitly show this layer.  So that issue is now fixed.  If anyone has a concern regarding factual accuracy, that can be identified and fixed as well.--Concord hioz (talk) 03:08, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Alternative search engines should be included in the ranking in the paragraph "market share"
Other search engines like Duckduckgo.com should be included in the ranking in the paragraph "market share". Indeed I can see that Lycos is still there in this small list and that more popular search engines like Duckduckgo.com is absent. I do not know the other one but they surely exists Miladioudediou (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Search engine submission
The source article does not have any references and thus does not claim NOTABILITY for it to be in its own article. &#60;&#60;&#60; SOME GADGET GEEK &#62;&#62;&#62; (talk) 00:52, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I suggest not to merge the two articles because of the following two key reasons:

1. The article "Search Engine Submission" does have many reliable references, but it seems nobody add them. For example: when we submit to the search engine Baidu.com, we use the official submission link Baidu provides: http://zhanzhang.baidu.com/linksubmit/url Let's add them later.

2. The two articles target different visitors: the article "web search engines" is for beginners or for those who want to know search engine history, while the article "search engine submission" is for those who want to promote their websites or business worldwide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.196.149.163 (talk) 08:29, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Clearly search engine submission should be merged here, though frankly most of it has no place anywhere and should just be deleted. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I plan to boldly perform this merge at the weekend unless I see any serious opposition. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:20, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

✅ Jonathan A Jones (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Search engine versus web browser
This article does not distinguish the terms "web browser" and "search engine" although it does distinguish the terms "search engine" and web directory. My computing knowledge is not good enough to allow me to work out how a web browser is different to a search engine, so can I make a plea that a knowledgeable editor can distinguish these terms. Thank youVorbee (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * They're completely different things. A web browser is an application you use to receive information from the web. A search engine is a service that guides you to that information. It's like the difference between a telephone and the Yellow Pages. Largoplazo (talk) 20:38, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Market share table source
What's the source for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine#Market_share? --orschiro (talk) 09:38, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

The article should provide information about "advanced search" feature -whether is present or not in the engine being described.
The "Advanced Search" was deleted by Google and at present if the user defines the desired result by inputting "word1 word2 word3" Google will respond with results containing "word1" ONLY! or ANY combination of 1,rearely 2, never 3 in the output. This dishonest procedure is not the only dishonest action by Google geared now to be a money-making machine. If the net is cast wide, the chance that the user will hit some advert, is increased. The EU Comissioner fined Google for promoting its "shopping" but failed to notice that it skews the general search as well. The "advanced" feature and Boolean Search are most important for the user, not so much the technicalities mentioned in the article. Otherwise the author(s) ought to be complimented for listing all engines as they did. signed by Jan Stecki, retired prof in science. 89.67.88.163 (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Search Syntax
I second the opinion of the user above. Where is the information about Search Syntax ? Why has it apparently totally disappeared from the pages of Wikipedia ? Darkman101 (talk) 06:39, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Jewgle seems like a joke to me
I have looked for the Jewgle out of curiosity, but I haven't found any working site that is not a joke. Inconexo (talk) 16:20, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * That's because it's called Jewogle.com.  General Ization Talk  16:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Inktomi - it looks like a company, not a web search (duplicate of HotBot)?
I may be wrong, but Inktomi doesn't look like it had a inktomi.com (archived) direct (global) web search page, it's more of a company with a search engine product. It doesn't fit the later items on the chronology table - all later items have/had web search page. MarMi wiki (talk) 19:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Recent additions
Hi - I reverted your recent changes, partly because your edits were not consistent with the MOS, but also because they didn't appear to be taking a neutral point of view.
 * You wrote some of the content in the second person ('...when you search...') - we don't address the reader directly in articles.
 * More importantly, your editing seemed either to state the conclusions of this particular author as fact, in Wikipedia's voice. It may be possible to use the source you've used, with proper attribution, to add something to the article, but we should be using phrases like 'Noble has argued that the results of the survey indicate a range of sexist assumptions in society...' etc. Hope that makes sense, Girth Summit  (blether)  16:37, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Religious search engines
There are countless categories of specialized search engines, so I don't understand why there is a section here detailing "Religious search engines", but nothing else. I suggest either the section be renamed "Specialized search engines" and then provide a general list of representative platforms (and trim this text considerably), or fork the current content into a new article on Religous search engines. -- Zim Zala Bim talk 15:40, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Meta search
I remember using a site that would submit my query to many search engines at once and aggregate the results, but I can't remember the name. Does anyone remember it? Shouldn't this be in the list? -- SpareSimian (talk) 14:51, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There were many sites like this, and they exist also today. Depends if the site is significant. Pikavoom (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * https://searx.me/ @SpareSimian is this it? Mr.robto (talk) 03:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I have just tried to undo the silly vandalisation of the page but it wont let me do it.
Someone has indeed replaced the page with an old poem. I have clicked on undo... it says it has to be done manually. I would appreciate if someone with better knowledge could fix it please. --Hypernator (talk) 22:27, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I fixed it. You can ask questions about things like this at WP:Teahouse. Johnuniq (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey thanks for that. Kind of annoying when people do that kind of thing.--Hypernator (talk) 22:58, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 18 June 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved   -- Calidum  19:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Search engine → Web search engine – According to lead Eurohunter (talk) 22:40, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per nominator. Then either disambiguate search engine or move search engine (computing) to it. J I P  &#124; Talk 02:12, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Most people would call google a "search engine", not "web search engine". 𐩘 Datapass talk 	⌇ contribs 18:33, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. Saying "according to lead" is misleading, as the lead was just changed recently (and needlessly IMO) to use the wordier title.  SnowFire (talk) 22:15, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose clearly 'web search engine' is not the WP:COMMONNAME—blindlynx (talk) 16:01, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above.  Mysterymanblue  22:13, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose Search engine is primary topic for the topic covered, besides being the common name. No supporting guidelines or enough arguments were provided by the proposer to validate this move. Lead alone is not enough because it is specifying technical terms.Hfnreiwjfd (talk) 17:33, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Article lede
Not sure if you & the IP address are the same person, but the RM above failed. The long-standing intro ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Search_engine&oldid=1028190477 ) just calls it a "search engine" because, well, that's the term. Then you & the IP addresseses started trying to force in this needless disambiguation. It's just called a search engine, as can be shown by countless hits in the wild - you can disagree with that usage and think it's not specific enough and needs "web", but the rest of the world doesn't agree. Check out a Google News search for "Search Engine" and you'll see what I mean - people aren't attaching "Web" in front, they know what's meant in the same way that people don't specify that they mean a sailing ship not a starship when they say "ship". SnowFire (talk) 22:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
 * , I think we should merge Search engine and Search engine (computing) so that it becomes a moot point. Then the lead can say something to the effect of A search engine is a software system that searches a collection of documents, most commonly web pages. Rublov (talk) 23:02, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd honestly be okay with just straight-up deleting Search engine (computing), or turning it into some sort of pseudo-disambiguation page. SnowFire (talk) 05:51, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we could copy over the section "How search engines work" from Search engine (computing) to Search engine, add a brief "Non-web search engines" section, and then delete Search engine (computing)? Rublov (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
 * That would be fine by me. Also, to the IP addies who keep changing the lede back, discuss why you want it changed on the talk page.  I'm not a mind reader.  SnowFire (talk) 18:16, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Per the discussion in "Article lede" above, I propose that Search engine (computing) be merged into this page. It is not at all clear from the page titles that Search engine is actually about web search engines and Search engine (computing) (poor disambiguation, incidentally web search engines are also a topic in computing) is about the general topic of search engines, web search engines included. The recent RM sought to remedy this and failed. If fixing the pages' titles isn't an option, the next best thing is to combine the articles, especially since Search engine (computing) is short and not very high-quality.

So I propose that we merge Search engine (computing) into a new section in this article called "How search engines work", add a brief "Non-web search engines" section, and rewrite the lead to define search engines correctly as a general concept but clarify that the article is mostly about web search engines.

Pinging participants in the recent RM:, , , , , ,

-- Rublov (talk) 11:09, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think there could be separate article for web search (written from scratch) which use search engine (computing). Btw. as I understand web query is just a result of "web search work" so web query could be a section of new article named web search? Eurohunter (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to realise English naming. Isn't "web search" also or just named "internet search" and "web search/internet search" use "search engine" to show "web query"? Eurohunter (talk) 13:18, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. These are, albeit related, different topics, and each pass notability criteria (Search engine (computing) should of course have more references) to have their own articles. Thus, they should be kept in separated articles. That move proposal only specified the lead terms, and nothing was specified to "remedy this". I propose to put in the lead of Search engine "A web search engine, commonly known as search engine, is [...]".Hfnreiwjfd (talk) 14:20, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You mean ratcher "A search engine, also known as web search engine is [...]" right? Eurohunter (talk) 20:39, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , This would also be an acceptable solution to me, provided we also add a hatnote link to Search engine (computing) to the top of Search engine. Rublov (talk) 14:48, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * yeah adding a hatnote with something like "for search engines in general, see" would be good. Search engine (computing) is mostly problematic for its non-referenced content, and for not discussing at least a little the different types of search engines instead of solely listing them.Hfnreiwjfd (talk) 15:02, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Oppose merge: (per Hfnreiwjfd's initial statement). Other discussions appear to have some merit but I'm not looking in detail at those. Djm-leighpark (talk) 09:47, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I would be in favor of a merge, or at least a drastic rewriting of Search engine (computing) (possibly to a pure disambiguation page?), which seems to be something of a created umbrella topic for "searching but not on the web". To be sure, the subtopics are real like Desktop search, I just don't think people really categorize desktop file search and search aggregators as really having anything to do with one another.  SnowFire (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Many search engines do not search the web, so we need Internet search engine as well as Search engine (computing). We could have Search engine (disambiguation) rather than just Search engine, but maybe that is a step too far? — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 12:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose the merge to Search engine. Search engines in general are a broader topic in computing than web search. However, it might make sense to merge Search engine (computing) into Full-text search. Full-text search is the most commonly used term for text search engines beyond web. MarioGom (talk) 11:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia operation
Is it poor design of Wikipedia, or initiative of "vigilant" MrOllie watch? It Seems that any changes contributed by me being reverted by that person (Be welcoming to newcomers). Please advise. (Tatdig (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2021 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tatdig (talk • contribs) 18:43, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? You added an unsourced, non-notable search engine  and user:MrOllie quite rightly undid the edit. It was your first edit ever, and so far your only edit to article space. MrOllie is not following you around and reverting your edits, and has done absolutely nothing wrong. Meters (talk) 00:08, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

"People Search" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect People Search and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 23 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 07:44, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Search engine (computing) into Search engine
wide overlap. keep in mind Search engine technology has recently been merged into Search engine (computing). so, the previous deserves a revisit. fgnievinski (talk) 06:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC) fgnievinski (talk) 06:51, 20 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose - From the content, it appears that Search engine (computing) is the WP:SUMMARY article so the appropriate merge would be Search engine into Search engine (computing). This doesn't look like a good idea because Search engine is larger than Search engine (computing) and would create a lopsided article. It is confusing that we have two articles with the same name and overlapping content. Moving Search engine to Web search engine or Search engine (web) would clarify the relationship between the articles but these proposals runs afoul of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC respectively. In summary, the current titling is unclear, but I'm not coming up with anything better. ~Kvng (talk) 14:24, 28 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, but - Storing, seeking and retrieving information is almost as old as automatic computing. Fording the semantic gap from data to information is slightly newer: see informatics. Sieving heaps of unstructured semantic tokens became a feature of industrial machinery in the early 1990s, at first known as full-text search capabilities. How this became an "engine" is unclear. It happened at some point around 1997, at the start of the dot-com craze. Now, this is 2023, and in the mind of the general public there is no doubt that "search engine" equates "web search engine" and more likely equates a certain Californian company. Nevertheless, for Wikipedia being an encyclopedia, going from general to particular would be along the path of FT search −> Search engine –> Web search engine. Think of the children. They need to learn that not all life is digital, that all things digital are not online, that all things online are not on the Internet, that the WWW is not all of the Internet, and that not all of the WWW is on pocket computers. I therfore propose that the present article be renamed Search engine (World Wide Web), and that the current Search engine (computing) be renamed Search engine. --Noliscient (talk) 15:18, 7 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Support - Very similar topics here. Waylon (he was here) (Does my editing suck? Let's talk.) (Also, not to brag, but...) 17:40, 15 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose (Retracted) - Rename "Search engine" to "Web search engine" and keep the articles as is. There are a set of wikilinks that already point to "Web search engine". Optionally rename search engine (computing) to something else. ComputerUserUser (talk) 19:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Support - As stated above, this article already is the COMMONNAME of the term "search engine". When the typical Web user hears this term, they think of Google (or whatever their primary search provider is). So this article title needs to stay as-is. The other article isn't that long, so the relevant portions could be merged here. -Pmffl (talk) 16:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Support (Retracted) - I agree with Pmffl. ComputerUserUser (talk) 17:11, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Partial Support - It would be a loss of information to shoehorn all of search engines, including FTP search engines and others, into a page dedicated to web search engines. Some of the material can be moved. It is encyclopedic to keep the Search engine (computing) page as an overview of all search engine technology. ComputerUserUser (talk) 19:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Good point. If there are niches, like FTP search, that could also be informally called a search engine, that would be worth preserving in a concise manner. I suggest merging most of Search engine (computing) here, then reducing it to something like what I've done for software engine. -Pmffl (talk) 19:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Plagiarism
The entire "Technology" section appears to have been copied verbatim from https://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/sonnenreich/history.html. This source is also absolutely ancient relative to the subject matter. FChlo (talk) 01:34, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you know anything about the history of this text? You added Search engine on 6 November 2022 in diff with edit summary "splitting apart Search engine technology". The link in that edit summary is now a redirect to Search engine (computing). The original Search engine technology contained the text added in diff on 1 June 2014. The HTML source for the Wiley history includes a copyright claim from 1997. I spent a fair bit of time working this out and will leave it for the moment. At this stage, it appears the text was copied to Wikipedia from Wiley or possibly from an earlier page that existed before the Wiley page. Johnuniq (talk) 02:03, 11 May 2024 (UTC)