Search Engine

search mechanism, mechanism on the Internet which allows searching for specific information

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload.The most popular form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the public World Wide Web. Other kinds of search engines include enterprise search engines, which search on intranets, desktop search engines, and mobile search engines.
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Noun
1. a computer program that retrieves documents or files or data from a database or from a computer network (especially from the internet)
(hypernym) program, programme, computer program, computer programme

<World-Wide Web, tool, information science> A remotely accessible program that lets you do keyword searches for information on the Internet. There are several types of search engine; the search may cover titles of documents, URLs, headers, or the full text.
A list of search engines, Centre Universitaire d'Informatique at the University of Geneva
(1995-11-28)

Internet companies with programmes used for finding information on the world-wide web. Some popular search engine include, Google, Yahoo, Infoseek, Alte-Vista (see portal)