Discovering Document Semantics QBYS: A System for Querying the WWW by Semantics

This paper describes our research into a query-by-semantics approach to searching the World Wide Web. This research extends existing work, which had focused on a query-by-structure approach for the Web. We present a system that allows users to request documents containing not only specific content information, but also to specify that documents be of a certain type. The system captures and utilizes structure information as well as content during a distributed query of the Web. The system also allows the user the option of creating their own document types by providing the system with example documents. In addition, although the system still gives users the option of dynamically querying the web, the incorporation of a document database has improved the response time involved in the search process. Based on extensive testing and validation presented herein, it is clear that a system that incorporates structure and document semantic information into the query process can significantly improve search results over the standard keyword search.