Part 1: How Search Engines Work

Week 5 — Lesson 2  |  CI1000: Computer Basics for Healthcare Professionals

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• Compare major search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google Scholar) and explain when each is most appropriate for academic research.
• Apply effective search strategies including keyword selection, Boolean operators, and advanced search filters.
• Evaluate the credibility of an internet source using criteria such as authority, accuracy, currency, and purpose.
• Describe the ethical considerations of using AI-generated content in academic research.

Every time you type a question into Google or Bing and press Enter, you are using one of the most powerful research tools ever created. But have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes? Understanding how search engines work will make you a more effective researcher, whether you are looking up a medical term for a class assignment or finding evidence-based health information for a patient education project.

Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking

Search engines perform three core functions to deliver results:

1. Crawling -- Search engines use automated programs called "crawlers" (also known as "spiders" or "bots") that continuously visit web pages across the internet. These crawlers follow links from one page to another, discovering new and updated content.
2. Indexing -- After a crawler visits a page, the search engine stores and organizes the page's content in a massive database called an index. Think of this index as a library catalog that contains information about billions of web pages.
3. Ranking -- When you type a search query, the search engine scans its index for relevant pages and ranks them based on hundreds of factors, including relevance to your keywords, the authority of the website, page loading speed, and how many other trusted sites link to that page.

This process explains why different search engines can return different results for the same query. Each search engine uses its own ranking algorithm, which weighs these factors differently.

Comparing Major Search Engines

Typing a full question into a search engine often works for simple lookups, but academic research demands more precision. Learning a few strategic techniques will help you find higher-quality results faster and avoid sorting through pages of irrelevant content.

Choosing Effective Keywords

The words you type into a search bar are called keywords. Effective keyword selection is the single most important skill for productive internet research. Instead of typing a complete sentence, identify the two to four most important terms that describe what you are looking for.

For example, instead of searching "What are the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in adults?", try the following: type 2 diabetes symptoms adults. This focused approach removes unnecessary words and helps the search engine match your query to relevant pages more accurately.

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are special words that tell the search engine how to combine your keywords. Mastering these three operators will significantly improve your search results:

Advanced Search Techniques

Beyond Boolean operators, the following techniques help you locate exactly what you need:

• Quotation marks -- Placing a phrase in quotation marks searches for those exact words in that exact order. Example: "patient-centered care"
• Site-specific search -- Use site: to search within a specific domain. Example: site:nih.gov diabetes treatment guidelines searches only the National Institutes of Health website.
• Filetype search -- Use filetype: to find specific document types. Example: filetype:pdf HIPAA compliance checklist returns only PDF documents.
• Domain filtering -- Limiting your search to .edu, .gov, or .org domains can help you find more authoritative sources. Example: site:.gov vaccination schedule 2026

Finding information online is easy. Finding reliable information requires critical thinking. Not every website that appears in your search results is trustworthy, and in healthcare, using unreliable sources can have serious consequences. A medication dosage from an unreliable website, an outdated treatment protocol, or a biased health claim could put patients at risk.

The CRAAP test is a widely used framework for evaluating the credibility of internet sources. Developed by librarians at California State University, Chico, it provides five criteria for assessing any source you find online.

The Five CRAAP Criteria

Red Flags to Watch For

When evaluating a website, watch for the following warning signs that suggest the source may not be reliable:

• No author identified -- Credible sources typically attribute content to a named author or recognized organization.
• No publication date -- Without a date, you cannot determine whether the information is current.
• Extreme bias or emotional language -- Reliable sources present information objectively, even when advocating for a position.
• No citations or references -- Scholarly and professional sources cite their evidence.
• Domain considerations -- While not a guarantee, .edu (educational institutions), .gov (government agencies), and .org (nonprofit organizations) tend to be more reliable than .com (commercial) sites for academic research.

Being a competent internet researcher means more than finding information. It also means understanding how the internet tracks your activity, recognizing the difference between research content and advertising, and using information ethically.

Cookies, Tracking, and Your Digital Footprint

When you visit a website, it often stores small files called cookies on your computer. Some cookies are helpful, such as remembering your login information or shopping cart contents. Others are used for tracking your browsing behavior across multiple websites to serve you targeted advertisements.

Microsoft Edge provides tools to manage your privacy. You can browse privately using InPrivate mode (press Ctrl + Shift + N), which does not save your browsing history, cookies, or form data after you close the window. You can also manage your privacy settings by selecting Settings, then Privacy, search, and services in Edge.

Ad-Supported Content Versus Research Content

When you search online, some of the top results may be advertisements rather than organic search results. These paid results are typically labeled "Ad" or "Sponsored." While ads are not necessarily unreliable, they exist to promote a product or service, which means they may present biased information. For academic research, focus on organic (non-sponsored) results from authoritative sources.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Citing Internet Sources

Information found on the internet is protected by copyright, just as printed material is. When you use information from a website in your academic work, you must cite it properly. The following guidelines apply:

• Always cite your sources -- Whether you quote directly, paraphrase, or summarize, you must give credit to the original author. Failing to cite is plagiarism.
• Fair use allows limited use -- You may quote brief passages for educational purposes, but copying large sections of a website into your paper without permission is a copyright violation.
• Use APA format for internet sources -- UMA courses use APA format for citations. An APA website citation includes the author, date, title, website name, and URL.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini have rapidly become part of the digital landscape. These tools can generate text, answer questions, and even write essays on virtually any topic. As a student, it is essential that you understand both the potential and the risks of using AI in academic work.

What AI-Generated Content Is

AI-generated content is text, images, or other media created by an artificial intelligence model rather than a human author. When you ask an AI tool a question, it generates a response based on patterns it learned from a massive dataset of text. The response may sound authoritative and well-written, but it is a statistical prediction of what a good answer looks like, not a retrieval of verified facts.

Risks of Using AI for Academic Work

While AI tools can be helpful for brainstorming or understanding a concept, relying on them for academic work introduces serious risks:

• Hallucination -- AI models sometimes generate information that sounds accurate but is completely fabricated. This includes fake statistics, nonexistent studies, and fabricated author names.
• Fabricated citations -- AI tools often produce realistic-looking citations that reference articles, journals, or books that do not exist. If you include these in your paper, your instructor will discover they are invalid.
• Lack of current information -- AI models are trained on data up to a certain date. They may not have access to the most recent research, guidelines, or regulations.
• Academic integrity violations -- Submitting AI-generated text as your own work is a form of academic dishonesty at most institutions, including UMA.

Ethical Use of AI as a Research Starting Point

AI can be used ethically in your academic workflow when you treat it as a starting point rather than a final source. Consider the following appropriate uses:

• Generating initial ideas -- Ask an AI tool for an overview of a topic to help you identify subtopics and keywords for your own research.
• Explaining difficult concepts -- If you are struggling to understand a technical term or process, AI can provide a plain-language explanation that helps you get started.
• Brainstorming search terms -- AI can suggest related keywords and phrases that you can use in your own search engine queries.

In every case, you must verify any information AI provides by checking it against authoritative sources, and you must write your assignments in your own words.