More on Search Engines

[Bill Manson MVLC (978) 475-7632]

Metacrawler has a website (Metaspy) 
http://search4.metacrawler.com/perl/metaspy?
that is aimed at giving a 'snapshot' of searches on the web.  I 
understand that some use this site in teaching/demo situations to give some 
idea of the diversity of searches that are actually performed.  I believe 
that the snapshot quality is mediated, or at least second hand.  If one 
looks at Metaspy off and on over the course of a day (and especially if 
one uses the refresh key rather than waiting for the auto refresh to kick 
in), a pattern of searches will emerge.  Some unusual searches -- 
misspellings repeated, etc. -- will occur with a very high frequency.  If 
someone searches for "surfing the web anonomously" on a single engine for 
12 hours, they may need more help than we can give <g>.  I'm guessing 
that a small set of sample searches are captured and then put into a 
random looping program.  Those searches appear to stay in Metaspy for 
about one day and are then replaced.  Does it really make a difference?  
Perhaps not, but it's interesting to know in any case.


*************************************************************
* Bill Manson                           * "Technology is    *
* Executive Director                    *  impossible to    *
* Merrimack Valley Library Consortium   *  predict, but     *
* Andover, MA 01810                     *  stupidity is a   *
* Phone:(978) 475-7632                  *  known constant." *
* Fax: (978) 475-8158                   *                   *
* Email: manson at mvlc.lib.ma.us          *  -- Scott Adams   * 
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