How search works
How search engines workThe five steps from discovery to rankingComponentsThe parts that make a search engine runCrawlingHow bots find and fetch your pagesIndexingHow a page gets stored so it can be foundCheck if indexedFour ways to confirm a page is on GoogleCrawling and indexing
Web crawlersGooglebot, Bingbot and the new AI botsGooglebotHow Google's crawler reads your siteRobots.txtRules, examples and a free testerXML sitemapCreate one, then submit it to GoogleCanonical tagPick the main version of a pageNoindex tagKeep a page out of search resultsRanking and results
Search engine rankingWhy one page appears above anotherGoogle ranking factorsWhat really matters, grouped simplyPageRankHow links pass value between pagesAlgorithmsTF-IDF, PageRank and modern rankingResults page (SERP)What each block on the page is forAI searchHow AI answers are built from the indexUnderstand
What is a search engineA plain definition with real examplesTypes of search enginesCrawler, meta, vertical, private and AIBrowser vs search engineTwo tools that people often mix upExplore
Best search enginesGoogle, Bing, DuckDuckGo and moreUses of search enginesThe everyday jobs that search handlesHistory of search enginesFrom Archie in 1990 to AI answersThis policy explains, in plain language, what information Search Engine Basics handles when you visit. The short version is that the site has no accounts, no forms and no advertising cookies.
Summary
| What | Collected? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Server logs | Yes, by our hosting provider | To deliver pages, keep the site secure, fix errors |
| Essential cookies | Only those the site needs, plus any set by hosting or caching | To load pages correctly and quickly |
| Advertising cookies | No | The site carries no advertising |
| Your email | Only if you write to us | To reply to your message |
| Accounts or forms | None | The site has no sign-up or contact form |
Server logs
Like almost every website, this one runs on a web server that keeps basic logs of each request. A log entry typically records your IP address, the page you asked for, the time of the request, plus your browser type.
Our hosting provider keeps these logs to deliver pages, protect the site against abuse and diagnose errors. We do not use them to build a profile of you or to identify individual visitors.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that a website stores in your browser. Search Engine Basics only uses cookies that the site needs to work. Our hosting or caching provider may also set a cookie to serve pages quickly and securely.
No advertising cookies are used, so nothing on this site follows you around the web to show you ads. You can delete or block cookies in your browser settings at any time.
Third parties
A few files on the site load from outside services, which is a normal part of how web pages are built.
Typefaces on this site are loaded from Google Fonts. Your browser requests the font files from Google’s servers, which can see your IP address like any web request.
Some scripts load from public content delivery networks, namely cdnjs and jsDelivr. These services receive your IP address when your browser fetches a file.
One page shows search engine logos loaded from Google’s favicon service. Viewing that page sends a standard request, including your IP address, to Google.
Each provider handles data under its own privacy policy. We do not send them any information beyond what your browser shares when it loads a file.
If you email searchenginebasicstech@gmail.com, we receive your address along with whatever you choose to include. That information is used only to reply to you.
We never sell your email, share it for marketing or add you to a mailing list.
Your rights
You can ask what information we hold about you, which in practice is usually limited to emails you have sent. You can also ask us to correct or delete that information at any time.
Depending on where you live, local data protection laws may give you further rights over your personal data.
Contact
If this policy changes, the date at the top of the page will be updated to match. For any privacy question, write to searchenginebasicstech@gmail.com or use the contact page.
Our terms of use explain the conditions for using the guides on this site.