This chapter surveys various technologies involved in a Web search engine with an emphasis on performance analysis issues. The aspects of a general-purpose search engine covered in this survey include system architectures, information retrieval theories as the basis of Web search, indexing and ranking of Web documents, relevance feedback and machine learning, personalization, and performance measurements. The objectives of the chapter are to review the theories and technologies pertaining to Web search, and help us understand how Web search engines work and how to use the search engines more effectively and efficiently.