As Internet started to grow and became an integral part of day-to-day work, it became almost impossible for a user to fetch the exact or relevant information from such a huge web. And hence ‘Search Engines’ were developed. Search engines became so popular that now more than 80% of the web-site visitors come from the search engines. But what exactly is a Search Engine? According to webopedia, “Search Engine is a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found”.

For Example, if you want to know about the Automobile market in India, you will type some keywords like automotive market, automobiles in India, automobile manufacturers in India etc. and once you click on the search button, you’ll get the best relevant data related to those keywords.

Search engine industry is dominated by 3 major players- Google, Yahoo! and MSN with a market share of 35%, 32% and 16% respectively (according to searchenginewatch.com survey, 2004). A report released in March 2005 indicated that the search engines are being used between 2 to 3.5 billion times per day to find information online. And of course people using search engines are on the hunt for specific information and hence the audience is highly targeted. There are many other search engines such as AskJeeves, AOL, and Excite etc which are also famous among net users. But what are striking are the statistics regarding usage of search engines.

The use of search engine is a top online activity and netizens increasingly feel they get the information they want when they execute search queries.

On the probable eve of Google’s initial public offering, new surveys and traffic data confirm that search engines have become an essential and popular way for people to find information online. A nationwide phone survey of 1,399 Internet users between May 14 and June 17 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows:

• 84% of internet users have used search engines. On any given day online, more than half of those using the Internet, use search engines. And more than two-thirds of Internet users say that they use search engines at least a couple of times per week.
  
• The use of search engines usually ranks only second to email use as the most popular activity online. During periods when major news stories are breaking, the act of getting news online usually surpasses the use of search engines.

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