Google Search Engine has been doing a lucrative business for more than a decade now. And why will it not? Especially, when most of the people around the world are using it for searching for things they want on the internet. It is like the gateway to the modern internet era. Similarly, you can build a search engine of your own for various purposes such as getting your business ranked on google. However, before we look into the various steps involved in the process of building a search engine, let's look into what a search engine is in the first place.
What is a Search Engine?
A search engine is a web-based software system that can be used to look for various information on the internet. You can even call it an efficient and powerful internet tool by using which one can comfortably collect information on the topics they are looking for. It is also an automated software application that can be used to perform several functions such as Crawling, Indexing, Storing Information, and Giving results.
Crawling
It is the process in the search engine where the bot or spiders, better known as crawlers, are sent across different websites simultaneously to collect a large amount of information. Thus, enabling the search engine to remain up to date.
Indexing
Indexing comes after crawling where the search engine essentially indexes the crawled content for a fast and smooth search operation. Indexing is often done categorically based on the various keyword phrases collected from each of the crawled websites individually.
Storing Information
As the name would suggest, this function is used for storing the collected information found during the process of crawling. Its main function is to enable a user to find the information they are looking for quickly and efficiently.
Giving Results
This function displays the immediately available results for the query typed in by a user in the search indexing bar.
Having your own search engine can be extremely beneficial if you are planning for a long term website or a startup as it enables you to store all the information in one place. Also, it will help your customer or visitor to easily look for the information they are searching for.
Creating your Search Engine Software
If you have decided to learn about creating your own search engine software then here are the six quick steps that you can follow to build one.
1. Write Down your Search Requirements
Every search engine out there has been built with a dedicated purpose. For example, the Google Search Engine helps the user with the quick display of results they have queried for. Similarly, in the first step of building your search engine, you should write down all the requirements for the search that will be used by your website.
2. Select an Engine
Once you are ready with all the data and the requirements that should be in your engine, your next step should be to choose the search engine itself. Yes, you don’t have to build your search engine from scratch as there is already a plethora of it available in the market. All you have to do is select the one that fits your needs and tune it accordingly. Some of the popular search engines are Solr, Xapian, Sphinx, and Elastic Search.
3. Starting the Engine
In this step, you have to set up the selected search engine. Then analyze and compound queries in it that you want it to display and start.
4. Defining Index Structure
Indexing is crucial to building a search engine. Although indexing is more dependent on the database that you have selected, its structure governs the effectiveness of the search engine. Therefore, structure the indexing in a way that is most convenient for the user to look up the information they have queried for.
5. Set Up Data Update
Sending up important updated information from the database to the search engine is an important part of building a search engine as it improves the effectiveness of indexing. And while most search engines can directly collect information from the database, in some you have to set up the index update with the help of codes.
6. Start Making Requests
By this step, your search engine must be ready and working properly meaning it does not require any additional updates or work. So, now you can start making requests to use different ranking algorithms.
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