In
both cases, when you query a search engine to locate information,
you're actually searching through the index that the search
engine has created —you are not actually searching
the Web. These indices are giant databases of information
that is collected and stored and subsequently searched.
This explains why sometimes a search on a commercial search
engine, such as Yahoo! or Google, will return results that
are, in fact, dead links. Since the search results are based
on the index, if the index hasn't been updated since a Web
page became invalid the search engine treats the page as
still an active link even though it no longer is. It will
remain that way until the index is updated. |