If you've ever wondered what a search engine is and how it works, then you'll enjoy today's article. I've written a very concise picture of what search engines are and what they do, without all the complicated math.

Related: So far in the 100 Search Engines in 100 Days, we've looked at SingingFish, Answers.com, Podscope, Zabasearch.com,GoDefy.com,AltaVista, BigClique.com, Indeed.com,Yahoo special properties, Dogpile, we've had an interview with Chris Tolles, VP of Sales and Marketing for Topix, and detailed profiles of Clusty, Ask Jeeves for Kids, Topix, spiders, robots, and crawlers, Scirus, Info.com, Kelkoo.com, Google, A9.com, MrSapo.com, and Blinkx.