The first and easiest step when investigating an issue or question is to go to the Internet. You will quickly find information and answers to questions. The results are often so vast that the most relevant ones can disappear. So, how does an Internet search actually work, and how do algorithms determine what you see?

All searches are made in databases

Trraditional search tools such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo search through databases where the individual web pages have been organized and categorized. Consequently, searches can be quick and as precise as possible. Even virtal assistants using speach recognition, such as Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa or Bixby will have to go to one of these databases when you request information. During the process, the tool's algorithms analyse the composition of the words you search with and compare these to words on all the websites they have indexed. Languages are recognised, and spelling mistakes are interpreted. Google works well for simple facts, but is not the most efficient and precise way to scientific publications.

At the same time, Google as a search engine sees competition from new, AI-supported search engines. Examples are Copilot (Accessible through UiBs Microsoft-deal), Gemini (accessible with a Google account), Perplexity and You.com. Where you would earlier have to evaluate long lists of results, the new seach tools can summarize information from the results and allow you a fast overview alongside links to the original web pages. The services can further handle natural languages and "understand" a complex question from you. Over time, they can even learn your preferences.

Chat GPS has sometimes ben used as if it were a search engine. It is important to remember that Chat GPT itself contains no factual information and cannot find any information for you. It is merely a probability-calculating language model. There are more specialized AI tools for academic literature searches, but their functionality and the range of literature they cover vary. These tools may become more useful later in your studies. For now, the best approach is to use search tools like Oria, Google Scholar, and especially subject-specific databases, if available.

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How the results are ranked varies

A number of factors determine what your results list looks like. What have you searched for previously? Where are you in the world? The popularity of different websites, both their use and the number of links to them, can make a big difference. The age and user-friendliness of the website also affect things. In addition, advertisements designed as matches are placed as the top results in some search engines. Google also provides a summary of issues and questions based on information on web pages that the algorithms deem relevant. This information is not always trustworthy, as the origin page may be questionable.

If you want a more objective results list, you can perform the search in private mode or the DuckDuckGo search engine. This search engine does not store cookies; your search is not "remembered".

Refine searches for books, news, images, or videos

It can be useful to take advantage of the filtering options that search tools provide. Pay special attention to the book search in Google, which is based on Google Books. Here, Google searches through many millions of books that have been scanned from various libraries. You can find information about the book and the author, and often preview certain pages. By searching directly in this, you can, for example, find phrases, quotes, and page numbers even if you do not have the entire book at hand.

Would you like to know more about how search engines work?

In this video, experts from Google and Bing explain how search engines work and what determines the content of a results list.

If you want to learn more about how Google searches work, you can visit Google's information pages about searches and search algorithms.

How does Google handle searches for academic literature?

Google hs ddeveloped Google Scholar specifically as a tool to locate academic literature. is a search engine specialising in scholarly literature.

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