A database search engine is a
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
that operates on material stored in a digital
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 ...
.
Search engines
Categories of search engine software include:
* Web search or full-text search (e.g.
Lucene
Apache Lucene is a free and open-source search engine software library, originally written in Java by Doug Cutting. It is supported by the Apache Software Foundation and is released under the Apache Software License. Lucene is widely used as a ...
).
*
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 ...
or
structured data
A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be co ...
search (e.g.
Dieselpoint
Dieselpoint, Inc. is a privately held enterprise search company headquartered in Chicago, IL. The company was founded in 1999 and develops software to search large datasets with both structured and unstructured elements.
The company focuses on ...
).
* Mixed or
enterprise search
Enterprise search is the practice of making content from multiple enterprise-type sources, such as databases and intranets, searchable to a defined audience.
"Enterprise search" is used to describe the software of search information within an ente ...
(e.g.
Google Search Appliance
The Google Search Appliance (GSA) was a rack-mounted computer device that provided document indexing functionality.
The GSA operating system was based on CentOS. The software was produced by Google and the hardware was manufactured by Dell. ...
).
The largest online directories, such as
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
and
Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
, utilize thousands of computers to process billions of website documents using
web crawlers
A Web crawler, sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web and that is typically operated by search engines for the purpose of Web indexing (''web spid ...
or
spiders (software), returning results for thousands of searches per second. Processing high query volumes requires software to run in a distributed environment with redundancy.
Components
Searching for textual content in
databases
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 spa ...
or
structured data
A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be co ...
formats (such as
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
and
CSV) presents special challenges and opportunities which specialized search engines resolve.
Databases
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 spa ...
allow logical queries such as the use of multi-field
Boolean logic
In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variable (mathematics), variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denote ...
, while full-text searches do not. "Crawling" (a human by-eye search) is not necessary to find information stored in a database because the data is already structured.
Indexing the data allows for faster searches.
Database search engines are usually included with major database software products.
Applications
Database search technology is used by large public and private entities including government database services, e-commerce companies, online advertising platforms, telecommunications service providers and other consumers with a need to access information in large repositories.
See also
*
Outline of search engines
*
List of search engines
Search engines, including web search engines, selection-based search engines, metasearch engines, desktop search tools, and web portals and vertical market websites have a search facility for online databases.
By content/topic
General ...
External links
Searching for Text Information in Databases
{{DEFAULTSORT:Search Engine Technology
Information retrieval systems