328 research outputs found
Using Search Engine Technology to Improve Library Catalogs
This chapter outlines how search engine technology can be used in online public access library
catalogs (OPACs) to help improve usersâ experiences, to identify usersâ intentions, and to indicate
how it can be applied in the library context, along with how sophisticated ranking criteria can be
applied to the online library catalog. A review of the literature and current OPAC developments
form the basis of recommendations on how to improve OPACs. Findings were that the major
shortcomings of current OPACs are that they are not sufficiently user-centered and that their results
presentations lack sophistication. Further, these shortcomings are not addressed in current 2.0
developments. It is argued that OPAC development should be made search-centered before
additional features are applied. While the recommendations on ranking functionality and the use of
user intentions are only conceptual and not yet applied to a library catalogue, practitioners will find
recommendations for developing better OPACs in this chapter. In short, readers will find a
systematic view on how the search enginesâ strengths can be applied to improving librariesâ online
catalogs
Evaluating the retrieval effectiveness of Web search engines using a representative query sample
Search engine retrieval effectiveness studies are usually small-scale, using
only limited query samples. Furthermore, queries are selected by the
researchers. We address these issues by taking a random representative sample
of 1,000 informational and 1,000 navigational queries from a major German
search engine and comparing Google's and Bing's results based on this sample.
Jurors were found through crowdsourcing, data was collected using specialised
software, the Relevance Assessment Tool (RAT). We found that while Google
outperforms Bing in both query types, the difference in the performance for
informational queries was rather low. However, for navigational queries, Google
found the correct answer in 95.3 per cent of cases whereas Bing only found the
correct answer 76.6 per cent of the time. We conclude that search engine
performance on navigational queries is of great importance, as users in this
case can clearly identify queries that have returned correct results. So,
performance on this query type may contribute to explaining user satisfaction
with search engines
Search engine user behaviour: How can users be guided to quality content?
The typical behaviour of the Web search engine user is widely known: a user only types in one or a few keywords
and expects the search engine to produce relevant results in an instant. Search engines not only adapt to this behaviour. On the
contrary, they are often faced with criticism that they themselves created this kind of behaviour. As search engines are trendsetters
for the whole information world, it is important to know how they cope with their usersâ behaviour. Recent developments
show that search engines try to integrate results from different collections into their results lists and to guide their users to the
right results. These results should not only be relevant in general, but also be pertinent in the sense of being relevant to the user
in his current situation and in accordance to his background.
The article focuses on the problems of guiding the user from his initial query to these results. It shows how the general users
are searching and how the intents behind their queries can be used to deliver the right results. It will be shown that search
engines try to give some good results for everyone instead of focusing on complete result sets for a specific user type. If the
user wishes, he can follow the paths laid out by the engines to narrow the results to a result set suitable to him
The Web is missing an essential part of infrastructure: an Open Web Index
A proposal for building an index of the Web that separates the infrastructure
part of the search engine - the index - from the services part that will form
the basis for myriad search engines and other services utilizing Web data on
top of a public infrastructure open to everyone
New perspectives on Web search engine research
PurposeâThe purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the context of Web search and search engine-related research, as well as to introduce the reader to the sections and chapters of the book. Methodology/approachâWe review literature dealing with various aspects of search engines, with special emphasis on emerging areas of Web searching, search engine evaluation going beyond traditional methods, and new perspectives on Webs earching. FindingsâThe approaches to studying Web search engines are manifold. Given the importance of Web search engines for knowledge acquisition, research from different perspectives needs to be integrated into a more cohesive perspective. Researchlimitations/implicationsâThe chapter suggests a basis for research in the field and also introduces further research directions. Originality/valueofpaperâThe chapter gives a concise overview of the topics dealt with in the book and also shows directions for researchers interested in Web search engines
A three-year study on the freshness of Web search engine databases
This paper deals with one aspect of the index quality of search engines: index freshness. The purpose is to analyse the update strategies of the major Web search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live.com. We conducted a test of the
updates of 40 daily updated pages and 30 irregularly updated pages, respectively. We used data from a time span of six weeks in the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. We found that the best search engine in terms of up-to-dateness changes over the years and that none of the engines has an ideal solution for index freshness. Frequency distributions for the pagesâ ages are skewed, which means that search engines do differentiate between often- and seldom-updated pages. This is confirmed by the difference between the average ages of daily updated pages and our control group of pages. Indexing patterns are often irregular, and there seems to be no clear policy regarding when to revisit Web pages. A major problem identified in our research is the delay in making crawled pages available for searching, which differs from one engine to another
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