(1) The field of search engine technologies. See
search engine.
(2) To look for specific data in a file or an occurrence of text in a file. A search implies either scanning content sequentially or using a database management system (DBMS) that compares one or more indexes to find a match. See
DBMS.
A Web Search
A search on the Web yields a list of Web pages that contain all the words in the search criteria (see
SERP). Contrast with a "lookup," whereby an index is used to keep track of data, and a DBMS is implied. See
Ctrl-F,
search engine,
desktop search,
Boolean search and
query.