Search Engine indexing & PageRank
Define 'Indexing'
The process of a search engine storing, sorting and collecting data from its index
Searching an index is a fast process, what does this mean for the index
It must be constantly updated to make sure there aren't any broken links, old sites are removed and new sites are added
How do search engines update their indexes & how does this process work?
They use web crawlers (spiders). These crawl around websites collecting info like keywords, phrases and the metadata of different websites. They get though multiple websites via their internal and external links.
Define the 'PageRank' algorithm
An algorithm that checks the number of links and the quality of the links(how trustworthy the links are) to a website. WHich determines the websites importance
Give 3 factors that determine the PageRank of a page
- How many inbound links from other web pages it has
- The page rank of the web pages that link to it
- The damping factor
What is the purpose of the 'damping factor'
Determines the importance of a web page based on its incoming links
A greater damping factor means what? And a lower dampening factor means what?
Higher - The PageRank is more heavily influenced by its inbound links
Lower - The PageRank is less influenced by its inbound links
Why does the page rank algorithm need to go through many iterations?
So that the PageRank value of a webpage can settle and be given a true value
Giva an advantage to indexing & search engine crawling explain each point
- Improved seach results - provides users with relevant and up to date search results
- Efficient retrieval of information
- Ranking & relevance - indexing allows search engines to assess the quality & relevance of a web page
- Freshness & updates - search engines revisit indexed web pages to check for updates and changes