SEARCH ENGINE vs PORTAL

Web Search Engine

• a program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.
• provide an interface to search for information on the worldwide web
• a program that indexes documents, and then attempts to match documents relevant to a user's search requests.
  The term search engine is most commonly used to refer to Web search engines, although other types of search engines exist. Web search engines attempt to index a large portion of pages on the World Wide Web. Other search engines are topic-specific, region-specific, and even site-specific.
• they index millions of sites on the Web, so that Web surfers like you and me can easily find Web sites with the information we want. By creating indexes, or large databases of Web sites (based on titles, keywords, and the text in the pages), search engines can locate relevant Web sites when users enter search terms or phrases.
• popular web search engine: Google Search, Live Search, Yahoo! Search

Web Portal

• a Web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls.
• is a site that functions as a point access to information on the worldwide web
• a site featuring a suite of commonly used services, serving as a starting point and frequent gateway to the Web.Web portal services often include a search engine or directory, news, email, stock quotes, maps, forums, chat, shopping, and options for customization. These are only some of the most frequently offered services; large portals often include dozens or hundreds of bundled services.
• portals typically include search engines and large directories of websites. Most large portals have millions of Web pages indexed for visitors to search though. They also have large directories of Web sites, which are categorized by topic. Though the primary purpose of a portal is to find other sites for you, many now include a lot of information within their own sites.
• popular web portals: Google.com, MSN.com, Yahoo.com