Fetch, see, store, sort: only the last one happens while someone waits.

Search is a pipeline. Fetching pages, working out what they show and filing them in the index are all done ahead of time, whenever the bot gets round to it. Putting results in an order depends on the exact words typed, on the searcher's place and on the device, so it can only happen when the query arrives. Ask which step needs the query to exist.

Read it once, then a question tests whether the trick stuck.