## 2.8 Search engines

The internet offers a huge amount of information worldwide. Search engines enable you to find information in various ways.
A search engine is not a database. A search engine is a website where you can search for information and information on other websites, while a database is a digital collection of articles, data and other types of information. If you want to know more about the differences between search engines and databases, then watch this video.

There are many search engines, of which Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo (privacy-friendly search engines) and Ecosia (sustainable search engine). Each search engine has its own way of searching, which is why you will see differences in the search results. It is therefore wise to use a different search engine from time to time.
PLEASE NOTE: Virtually anyone can publish information on the internet without any oversight from an editorial team. You will therefore need to assess the reliability of internet sources yourself.

See Chapter 4 for an overview of assessment criteria.