The 'Search' and 'Smart Search' components have coexisted since Joomla 2.5.
Search (or com_search) would provide a straightforward search feature while Smart Search would offer indexing and more advanced search capabilities with filtering.
Google has a major influence on search. About 78% of all searches on desktop and mobile are using Google. Bing has the second spot with 10.5% and Baidu the third place with 4.25%
Around 93% of all web traffic is via search, so if you want your articles read, then you need to get them into a search engine and in front of the relevant audience, but how?
By accepting you will be accessing a service provided by a third-party external to https://magazine.joomla.org/