Search engine data

Different search engines search different types of data. First, they can be divided roughly into “document types” such as text, image, sound, video etc. Results pages are designed as a function of this genus.

When you search for text documents they are usually presented with a text fragment that contains the search terms (often called Snippet). Image search engines display a thumbnail of the matching images.

A further more detailed breakdown looks at data-specific properties that do not share all the documents within a genus. The sample text may be used in Usenet articles for specific authors, with web pages in HTML format after the document title.

Depending on data type it is more functional than a restriction on a subset of all available data. This is generally achieved through additional query parameters to exclude a portion of the data collected.

Alternatively, a search engine is limited to include, from the beginning, only matching documents. Examples include a search engine for blogs (instead of the entire Web) or search engines that only documents universities, processes, or only documents from a certain country, in a specific language or a particular file format.