A communication engine is a tool that sends user requests to several other
communication protocols
A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchron ...
and/or
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
s and aggregates the results into a single list or displays them according to their source. Communication engines enable users to enter communication account authorization once and access several communication avenues simultaneously. Communication engines operate on the premise that the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
is too large for any one engine to index it all and that more productive results can be obtained by combining the results from several engines dynamically. This may save the user from having to use multiple engines separately.
Information retrieval techniques
Computing terminology
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