A statistical method for estimating the usefulness of text databases

Searching desired data on the Internet is one of the most common ways the Internet is used. No single search engine is capable of searching all data on the Internet. The approach that provides an interface for invoking multiple search engines for each user query has the potential to satisfy more users. When the number of search engines under the interface is large, invoking all search engines for each query is often not cost effective because it creates unnecessary network traffic by sending the query to a large number of useless search engines and searching these useless search engines wastes local resources. The problem can be overcome if the usefulness of every search engine with respect to each query can be predicted. We present a statistical method to estimate the usefulness of a search engine for any given query. For a given query, the usefulness of a search engine in this paper is defined to be a combination of the number of documents in the search engine that are sufficiently similar to the query and the average similarity of these documents. Experimental results indicate that our estimation method is much more accurate than existing methods.     

因特网搜索引擎评价系统

因特网搜索引擎的评价对因特网用户十分重要,但目前还缺乏很科学的评价方法。本文根据系统工程的根本思想,对此进行了初步探讨,并且利用层次分析法对各指标的权重进行了计算,提出了因特网搜索引擎评价指标体系,建立了一个搜索引擎评价模型。     

Search engines as a security threat

Because they implement vulnerable security policies, search engines are excellent tools for helping hackers to attack machines anonymously, search for easy targets or gather confidential data. Securing all channels against hackers trying to penetrate a vulnerable system isn't possible, but there is no reason for search engines to be wide-open channels that continue to help hackers find and penetrate weak systems. Because it is so easy to use a search engine to cloak an attack, search-engine-based hacker abuse has become a real threat that poses serious risks. However, not all blame should fall on those who operate the search engines. Search engines aren't responsible for the huge numbers of poorly configured and insecure machines all over the Internet even if the search engines do aid in identifying them, but the search engines must take some blame if they continue to provide easy ways to locate weak and penetrable machines     

The “Panopticon” of search engines: the response of the European data protection framework

Nowadays, Internet users are depending on various search engines in order to be able to find requested information on the Web. Although most users feel that they are and remain anonymous when they place their search queries, reality proves otherwise. The increasing importance of search engines for the location of the desired information on the Internet usually leads to considerable inroads into the privacy of users. A heated debate is currently ongoing at European level regarding the question if search engine providers that are established outside the European Union are covered by the European data protection framework and the obligations it imposes on entities that process personal data. The scope of this paper is to examine the applicability of the European data protection legislation to non-EU-based search engine providers and to study the main privacy issues with regard to search engines, such as the character of search logs, their anonymisation and their retention period. Ixquick, a privacy-friendly meta-search engine, will be presented as an alternative to privacy intrusive existing practices of search engines.     

An investigation of user attitudes toward search engines as an information retrieval tool

After the Internet has gained great popularity at homes and schools, there is much information on the Web. Today, one of the primary uses of the Internet is information retrieval from search engines. The main purpose of the current study is to develop and examine an individual attitude model towards search engines as a tool for retrieving information. This model integrates individual computer experience with perceptions. In addition, it also combines perception theories, such as technology acceptance model (TAM) and motivation, in order to understand individual attitudes toward search engines. The results show that individual computer experience, quality of search systems, motivation, and perceptions of technology acceptance are all key factors that affect individual feelings to use search engines as an information retrieval tool.     

Find it if you can: usability case study of search engines for young users

The Internet is an integral part of the lives of our children nowadays. Using the Internet, in particular search engines, children search for information for school, for their individual interests or simply for entertainment. Unfortunately, research shows that children face many difficulties when searching and browsing for information, even though there are several search engines that are designed especially for children. In this paper, we review recent work in this field and evaluate to what extent current search engines for children are appropriately supporting the motor and cognitive skills of elementary school-age children. We base our study on findings of previous research and derive criteria to assess existing search engines. Our results suggest that most of them still require improvements in order to fit the skills and competencies of children.     

基于Web Services的个人搜索引擎

随着Internet的出现,要从浩如烟海的网络信息中找出自己所想要的信息是非常困难的,Google是非常著名的搜索引擎,其搜索机制是面向大众的.其提供的Webservices功能利用标准化的Web协议在任何一种网络环境下可以使用这种服务,为定制个性化的搜索引擎提供了方便。文章探讨了Google搜索引擎提供的WebService及程序实现方式,并使用Delphi提供的WebServices组件与Google服务接口,实现了一个个性化的搜索引擎,实验表明其搜索结果与Google本身的搜索功能有了大的改进。     

Retracted: An Empirical Study of an Internet Marketing Strategy for Search Engine Optimization

Over the past few years, more and more Internet visitors are reaching websites through search engines rather than through direct links from another web page. Search engines have come to occupy a prominent position in the online world and are being used to find all kinds of information including things, events, people, and places. The search engine is also coming to play a greater role as a critical link between firms that use the Internet to build their image and find their target customers. How to achieve a high ranking in such search results given certain search words or phrases has become an issue of much interest in Internet marketing. The purpose of the current study is to develop a search engine optimization (SEO) mechanism that can be used by an enterprise to improve the ranking of its website in the search engine results. Social networking sites are included in our exploration of Internet marketing strategy. The proposed mechanism is then applied in the operations of an online ebook store. The website rankings obtained from two well‐known online search engines (Google and Yahoo) are evaluated in efforts to explore a better strategy to ensure higher rankings. The results reveal that a well‐designed SEO strategy, with the incorporation of social networking, can effectively enhance the website's visibility and exposure. Such a strategy will eventually contribute to overall site traffic and improve interaction with customers. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Known-Item Searching on the World Wide Web

Abstract

With the explosion of the World Wide Web, numerous search engines have proliferated online, claiming to be the best, fastest, or most accurate. Though each product is slightly different from the others in its presentation and search architecture, what all are providing is keyword searching of the Web's millions of pages. However, there are circumstances, just like in a library catalog, where an individual may want to perform a known-item search rather than a keyword search. The purpose of this paper was to discover whether known-item searches are possible with some of the Web's most popular search engines, and if the results retrieved using such a search would be satisfactory to a user. The author tested and compared four major Web search engines, using the most sophisticated search techniques available. Thirty-nine sites were selected and searched by title, and ranked according to the relevance and order of the displayed results.     

Internet的搜索引擎

文章对现有的中英文搜索引擎做了分析比较,指出当前搜索引擎存在过分追求大而全以及用户界面不方便表达用户感兴趣的主题的问题,并基于一个用 Ｊａｖａ开发的 Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ中文即时搜索工具,提出了一些尝试性的解决方案。     

基于模式推荐的个性化搜索引擎研究

随着互联网的飞速发展和目前传统搜索引擎存在的各种弊端,个性化搜索引擎的出现成为了一个必然;同时随着信息过载问题的出现,个性化推荐系统也已成为了不少领域关注的热点。本文将个性化推荐系统与个性化搜索引擎相结合,将推荐模式引入个性化搜索引擎中,研究并设计一个基于模式推荐的个性化搜索引擎。     

Visualizing Web search results in 3D

The exponential growth in Web sites is making it increasingly difficult to extract useful information on the Internet using existing search engines. Despite a wide range of sophisticated indexing and data retrieval features, search engines often deliver satisfactory results only when users know precisely what they are looking for. Traditional textual interfaces present results as a list of links to Web pages. Because most users are unwilling to explore an extensive list, search engines arbitrarily reduce the number of links returned, aiming also to provide quick response times. Moreover, their proprietary ranking algorithms often do not reflect individual user preferences. Those who need comprehensive general information about a topic or have vague initial requirements instead want a holistic presentation of data related to their queries. To address this need, we have developed Periscope, a 3D search result visualization system that displays all the Web pages found in a synthetic, yet comprehensible format.     

Information retrieval from the World Wide Web: a user-focused approach based on individual experience with search engines

Although search engines are essential tools for finding information on the World Wide Web, the effective use of search engines for information retrieval (IR) is a crucial challenge for any Internet user. Based on the user-focused approach, this study investigates individual information retrieval behaviors using information processing theory. The results show that experience with search engines significantly affects users’ attitudes toward search engines for information retrieval, the query-based service is more popular than the directory-based service, users are not completely satisfied with the precision of retrieved information and the response time of search engines, and users’ motivation is a key factor that predicts their intention to use search engines for information retrieval. Furthermore, this study proposes a conceptual model for investigating individual attitudes toward search engines for information retrieval.     

基于ASP．NET搜索引擎模型的实现

随着因特网技术的飞速发展,搜索引擎逐渐成为因特网重要的导航工具之一,而人们日常使用的搜索引擎代码并不开源,不利于研究学习。本文建立一个开源搜索引擎模型,并在ASP．NET中实现,为后续研究个性化搜索应用提供一个原型基础。     

基于搜索引擎的信息查询技术研究

随着网络的快速发展,搜索引擎日益成为处理信息的主流工具。Internet是世界上资料最多、规模最大的信息资料库。在WWW上进行信息查找有三种方法,即基于超文本的信息查询、基于目录的信息查询、基于搜索引擎的信息查询,网络信息检索核心工具是搜索引擎。本文从搜索引擎概述、查询技术方法及展望三方面进行阐述。     

Protection of Personal Data and Copyrighted Material on the Web: The Cases of Google and Internet Archive

This article analyzes what presently constitutes one of the most problematic aspects of search engines' and Internet archives' practices: the protection of personal data and copyrighted material. These issues are often sidelined in favour of the quickest possible development of ever more fashionable e-services. Yet the lack of consideration for these issues may hinder the development of various e-services as all kinds of legal claims and suits may be brought against service providers, particularly in the European Union, which is fond of drafting complex legislation in the field. This paper shows how typical search engines and Internet archives work and the legal issues to which their practices give rise. The examples used are Google and Internet Archive, and their policies. It is argued that many of the legal checks and balances they offer with respect to the protection of personal data and copyrighted material leave a great deal to be desired. The article concludes by providing a short list of possible remedies that could, at least provisionally, alleviate some of the most urgent problems.     

Using social networks to distort users’ profiles generated by web search engines

The Internet is one of the most important sources of knowledge in the present time. It offers a huge volume of information which grows dramatically every day. Web search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo…) are widely used to find specific data among that information. However, these useful tools also represent a privacy threat for the users: the web search engines profile them by storing and analyzing all the searches that they have previously submitted. To address this privacy threat, current solutions propose new mechanisms that introduce a high cost in terms of computation and communication. In this paper, we propose a new scheme designed to protect the privacy of the users from a web search engine that tries to profile them. Our system uses social networks to provide a distorted user profile to the web search engine. The proposed protocol submits standard queries to the web search engine; thus it does not require any change in the server side. In addition to that, this scheme does not require the server to collaborate with the users. Our protocol improves the existing solutions in terms of query delay. Besides, the distorted profiles still allow the users to get a proper service from the web search engines.     

Web accessibility awareness in search engine results

The enormous amount of information available on the Internet requires the use of search engines in order to find specific information. As far as web accessibility is concerned, search engines contain two kinds of barriers: on the one hand, the interfaces for making queries and accessing results are not always accessible; on the other hand, web accessibility is not taken into account in information retrieval (IR) processes. Consequently, in addition to interface problems, accessing the items in the list of results tends to be an unsatisfactory experience for people with disabilities. Some groups of users cannot take advantage of the services provided by search engines, as the results are not useful due to their accessibility restrictions. The goal of this paper is to propose the integration of web accessibility measurement into information retrieval processes. Firstly, quantitative accessibility metrics are defined in order to accurately measure the accessibility level of web pages. Secondly, a model to integrate these metrics within IR processes is proposed. Finally, a prototype search engine which re-ranks results according to their accessibility level based on the proposed model is described.     

Learning to Search and Searching to Learn: Income, Education, and Experience Online

Using data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project surveys, this article explores changing trends in reported sophistication and satisfaction with search skills and with search engines. We find that the proportion of Internet users searching online for answers to specific questions—as opposed to casual browsing—has grown significantly. Moreover, as users get more experience online, they increasingly become dependent on search engines, confident in their findings, and savvy about how search engines structure information, privilege paid results, and track users. When other factors are controlled, years of online experience is a strong predictor of the likelihood of a person doing specific searches on a daily basis, and experience can have an even stronger positive effect than education and income. We also find that years of online experience, frequency of use, and sophistication with multiple search engines can overcome socio-economic status in predicting how active a person is in searching across different topics.