· What is a search engine?

A search engine is a website which allows users to enter topics, questions and words to have them crosschecked with all websites that relate to them information entered.

· How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?

Search engines rank results according to keyword location and frequency.

· who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?

A program called WebCrawler sorts through information entered by the user and produces an ordered list according to relevance of topic.

· what are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?

My favourite search engines are Google and Ask. Google because it’s the most popular search engine on the internet and I figure there must be because its good. Ask because you can actually ask the internet questions and it gives you the closest thing to a reply, very new-age.

· Can you find some current news stories about search engines? (for example, Google has been in the technology news a bit lately).

Yahoo is currently under lawsuit over the disclosure of a man’s details. The man was imprisoned for sharing his views on a multi-party system of government and was charged for the “incitement to subvert state power”. The man claims that Yahoo gave his personal detail to the police, which led to his arrest.