Surfing the Web No, a search engine is not the part of a metal detector that helps you search for money. A Search Engine is software (usually accessible through many websites) on the Internet that allows you to search for information. And on the Internet you can search for everything! But how do you start a search? Suppose you wanted to find out where the largest roller coaster is located. You would either click Search on your web browser tool bar or go on to a search site such as Yahoo or Excite. The key words you might type into your search query are: Roller Coasters You would never want to type, world's largest roller coaster as a search query because it is TOO long. The more words in your query, the fewer pages that will come up because the search engine is trying to find all those words on a site. Being able to perform a good search is important. The Internet has information on almost everything--but you have to know how to find it!