Journey of Web Search Engines: Milestones, Challenges & Innovations

Past few decades have witnessed an informat ion big bang in the form of World Wide Web leading to gigantic repository of heterogeneous data. A humble journey that started with the network connection between few computers at ARPANET project has reached to a level wherein almost all the computers and other communication devices of the world have joined together to form a huge global in formation network that makes availab le most of the information related to every possible heterogeneous domain. Not only the managing and indexing of th is repository is a big concern but to provide a quick answer to the user‘s query is also of critical importance. Amazingly, rather miraculously, the task is being done quite efficiently by the current web search engines. This miracle has been possible due to a series of mathematical and technological innovations continuously being carried out in the area of search techniques. This paper takes an overview of search engine evolution from primitive to the present .