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In my opinion, the terms major search engines use to describe their size are specific enough to be a good marketing tactic and vague enough to be completely useless to searchers. So far the following terms have been used to describe the size of a search engine: 1. Total pages cataloged 2. Total pages indexed (Gigablast) 3. Total web documents (Yahoo) 4. Total pages being searched (Google) Google uses the most vague term: "searching" X number of pages. This could very well mean that their program considered pages for inclusion, maybe even saved an archived copy of that page but doesn't necessarily mean that number of pages can be found in their index (the files that a search engine accesses the moment someone performs a search query). Both Gigablast and Yahoo claim that they have a specific number of pages indexed. This is a more specific term that refers to the size of their searchable index as opposed to the number of pages they have archived. The index is the list of web pages that contain each term. It is accessed every time anyone performs a seat query. Of course search engines don't actually look at each web page in their index that contains a specific term. They just extract the most relevant 10 web pages from their index. They are able to tell you the total number of web pages containing your search query by accessing a separate index that has recorded the total number of web pages that contain every word. If I were to explain the inner workings of a search engine you would realize why the larger the size of the engine gets the less important it becomes. At this point, it is impossible to even verify their size claims. Not to mention the terms I listed above are so vauge they probably do not mean what you think they mean. Good luck to the search engines in the next round of the size wars. FyberSearch will continue down the path of useful features, tools and services relating to the search industry (such as Custom Monthly Cost Advertising, Web Thoughts and a bunch of advanced search settings). |
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