Difference Between Search Engine and Directory

Search Engine vs Directory

The large amount of information available on the internet itself creates a problem to the internet users. Content can sometimes be misleading and confusing too. If the user is looking for a specific detail, with this overwhelming amount of content, finding the correct information, filtering and selecting the most useful resources is a challenging task. To minimize these complications and make it easier for users to find required resource or the content, the resources and their content are catalogued. Two of the most popular cataloguing services available on the internet are the search engines and the web directories.

More about Search Engines

The search engine is a web application to search and locate the information or resources on the World Wide Web. With the growth of the resources on the www, indexing the contents in an easily accessible manner became more and more difficult. The solution presented for this problem is the web search engine.

Web search engine operates on the following three steps. Web crawling, Indexing, and searching. Web crawling is the process of collecting information and data available on the World Wide Web. This is normally done with automated software called a web crawler (also known as a spider). The web crawler is a program which executes an algorithm to retrieve information every web page and follow the related links automatically. The retrieved information will be indexed and stored in databases for later queries. The crawlers retrieve and index information about the contents of the page, such as words from the text, URL for the hyperlinks and special field in the page called meta tags.

When a request or a search query is made for a particular detail or a page on the web, through a web browser, the search engine retrieves related information from the indexed databases and displays the results as a list of related resources on the web browser.

更多关于Web目录

A web directory is a hierarchical catalogue of the websites published on the internet. Web sites can submit for cataloguing for these directories, and they are listed under relevant fields in the directory. Usually directories are maintained by human editors and a website is listed only if the site meets a certain criterion which guarantees the authenticity and the quality of the website. Examples of popular web directories are Yahoo! Directory and Open Direct Project. Some directories charge a fee to list the website, while some are free for listing. In both cases, the user has access to the directory without any charges.

Search Engine vs Directory

• Search engines are web application that displays a list of relevant resources available using a database created from indexing information gathered by web crawlers

• Web directory displays a list of relevant resources by a database created by a hierarchical catalogue of websites submitted for listing, where websites are reviewed by human editors.

• Search engines collect information about a website automatically for indexing, while Web directories require a submission from the website to be listed in the directory.

• Websites has to comply a certain criterion to be listed in a directory, to assure standard and quality, while a search engine will automatically list irrespective of the quality of the content. Though search engines use special algorithms to filter and provide the most relevant and useful information for users.

• Some directories charge for listing in the directory, while a search engine does not charge from the publishers.