Analysis of a very large web search engine query log

Silverstein, Craig; Marais, Hannes; Henzinger, Monika; Moricz, Michael

doi:10.1145/331403.331405

Cited by 1,018 publications

(833 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Studies of the Web search engine and the PubMed search log concurred with our usagelog analysis: A single term search is the most common, with three words maximum entered by typical users. 6 A PubMed study found that 22 percent of user queries were for known items rather than for a general subject, confirming our own log analysis findings that the majority of searches were for a particular source item. 7 Search-term analysis revealed that many of our users were entering partial article citations (e.g., author, date) in any query box expecting that article databases would be searched concurrently with the resource database.…”

supporting

confidence: 74%

LaneConnex: An Integrated Biomedical Digital Library Interface

Ketchell¹,

Steinberg²,

Yates³

et al. 2009

ITAL

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M ost biomedical libraries separate searching for resources held locally from external database searching, requiring clinicians and researchers to know which interface to use to find a specific type of information. Google, Amazon, and other Web search engines have shaped user behavior and expectations. 1 Users expect a simple query box with results returned from a broad array of content ranked or categorized appropriately with direct links to content, whether it is an HTML page, a PDF document, a streaming video, or an image. Biomedical libraries have transitioned to digital journals and reference sources, adopted OpenURL link resolvers, and created institutional repositories. However, students, clinicians, and researchers are hindered from maximizing this content because of proprietary and heterogeneous systems. A strategic challenge for biomedical libraries is to create a unified search for a broad spectrum of licensed, open-access, and institutional content.n Background Studies show that students and researchers will use the search path of least cognitive resistance. 2 Ease and speed are the most important factors for using a particular search engine. A University of California report found that academic users want one search tool to cover a wide information universe, multiple formats, full-text availability to move seamlessly to the item itself, intelligent assistance and spelling correction, results sorted in order of relevance, help navigating large retrievals by logical subsetting and customization, and seamless access anytime, anywhere. 3 Studies of clinicians in the patient-care environment have documented that effort is the most important factor in whether a patient-care question is pursued. 4 For researchers, finding and using the best bioinformatics tool is an elusive problem. 5 In 2005, the Lane Medical Library and Knowledge Management Center (Lane) at the Stanford University Medical Center provided access to an expansive array of licensed, institutional, and open-access digital content in support of research, patient care, and education. Like most of its peers, Lane users were required to use scores of different interfaces to search external databases and find digital resources. We created a local metasearch application for clinical reference content, but it did not integrate result sets from disparate resources. A review of federated-search software in the marketplace found that products were either slow or they limited retrieval when faced with a broad spectrum of biomedical content. We decided to build on our existing application architecture to create a fast and unified interface.A detailed analysis of Lane website-usage logs was conducted before embarking on the creation of the new search application. Key points of user failure in the existing search options were spelling errors that could easily be corrected to avoid zero results; lack of sufficient intuitive options to move forward from a zero-results search or change topics without backtracking; lack of use of existing genre or role searche...

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supporting

confidence: 74%

LaneConnex: An Integrated Biomedical Digital Library Interface

Ketchell¹,

Steinberg²,

Yates³

et al. 2009

ITAL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…These analyses have provided valuable information characterising user queries and sessions, e.g. [14,10], and give a useful overview of search behaviour on the Web.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Query Patterns in Email Search

Harvey¹,

Elsweiler

2012

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. Despite Email being the most popular communication medium currently in use and that people have been shown to regularly re-use messages, very little is known about how people actually search within email clients. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of email search behaviour obtained from a study of 47 users. We uncover a number of behavioral patterns that contrast with those previously observed in web search. From our findings, we describe ways in which email search could be improved and conclude with a short discussion of possible future work.

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“…Co-occurrence is largely limited to phrases, such as "real estate", "red hat", "clip art", and "puerto rico". However, some words, mainly adjectives like "free", tend to co-occur with several other terms [622,374,372].…”

Section: Transactional Queriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Workload Modeling for Computer Systems Performance Evaluation

Feitelson

2015

196

131

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Reliable performance evaluations require the use of representative workloads. This is no easy task since modern computer systems and their workloads are complex, with many interrelated attributes and complicated structures. Experts often use sophisticated mathematics to analyze and describe workload models, making these models difficult for practitioners to grasp. This book aims to close this gap by emphasizing the intuition and the reasoning behind the definitions and derivations related to the workload models. It provides numerous examples from real production systems, with hundreds of graphs. Using this book, readers will be able to analyze collected workload data and clean it if necessary, derive statistical models that include skewed marginal distributions and correlations, and consider the need for generative models and feedback from the system. The descriptive statistics techniques covered are also useful for other domains.

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Analysis of a very large web search engine query log

Cited by 1,018 publications

References 1 publication

LaneConnex: An Integrated Biomedical Digital Library Interface

LaneConnex: An Integrated Biomedical Digital Library Interface

Exploring Query Patterns in Email Search

Workload Modeling for Computer Systems Performance Evaluation

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