Module 3 in “The Internet” offered an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how search engines operate. I would say that I use search engines nearly every single day, but I never thought about how exactly they function. Considering the thousands, if not millions, of results that pop up whenever I do a search, I was surprised to find out that search engines are only viewing their own database instead of the entirety of the Internet. I was aware that search expressions are also called queries, but didn’t know that search engines also have their own translation system of sorts to better interpret our inputs. I also found the logical operators to be an interesting aspect, and am curious to see if mentally pre-applying such “AND” or “NOT” conditions to my search expressions will save me time in finding accurate results.

Prior to this chapter, the only experience I’ve had with tagging search terms is with YouTube videos, where the site itself says they are not the primary factor in determining search results. Considering what factors are the most important in search engine’s algorithms is also a very intriguing premise. Despite not directly getting to see the ruleset for search engines, its good to know that they are ever-evolving and hopefully improving. Meta tags & keywords that denote relevance to my query should take precedent over companies paying to have their sites higher on the results page. Ease of navigation, quality and professional display, and transparency of authorship and sources are other factors I can consider in finding the best articles and websites based on my search. What appears first isn’t always best, and until algorithms are completely objective, it’ll still take effort on my part to sort through the pages that come up.

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