What are the Differences between a search engine and a website?

Answer 1

Yes there is in fact. It's a small difference but one anyways. A search engine is just that it searches, and in the context you are talking about its a web search engine but the term "Search Engine" can apply to many other things. A Web portal is more like Yahoo. They offer mail, the weather, news, etc etc on the front page as well as a search Engine.

Answer 2

A search engine enters a database of web sites, but generally speaking, a search engine does not normally provide answers straight away. You enter a search term and it brings up a number of pages which it thinks are applicable to your search terms.

Search engines crawl through websites using computers to make an electronic copy of website (Also known as a cache). A search engine, therefore, is not technically a website, but access to a database of other websites.

A website is something you already know how to get on and where to go, which is typing the URL into the little space provided. A search engine helps you find an appropriate website for something you are looking for but don't know the URL but still need to find what you are looking for. After you type it into a search engine a bunch of URLs will pop up and you click on the one you think is most helpful.

Conversely, a website is a collection of htm, html, php or other "web" documents or "pages". Some websites hold specific topics (such as an eCommerce site; or a hobby website), while others provide portals to collections of information (for example: libraries; government sites; genealogy databases). A website may be privately owned and maintained, or owned by a company with an IT team.