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Commercial sites, like Yahoo, search their own directory much like the yellow pages.

Research sites, like Northern Light, search the internet using software robots which store information in their database, which you search.

There are other kinds of search engines, that search through a webpages meta-tags, for example.

Essentially, at this point, the internet is text based.

Internet Structure (backbone) Information
UUnet backbone North America network map
How various internet components work (email, webservers, dsl/cable, webpages, etc.)
Internet FAQ Archives
Internet.com
The Roads and Crossroads of Internet's History
Hobbes Internet Timeline
ImageQuest - History of the Internet and WWW
WebReference - History of the Internet
History of the WWW
Internet Society - All About the Internet
MIT - Internet Statistics