Sex & the Search Engine

[Martin Courtois]

I think search engines are extremely valuable, but they are not miracle
workers.  We're all aware of their basic design - full-text indexing, no
cataloging, weak algorithms for ranking results, etc. - and we need to
keep those factors in mind when we search and when we evaluate the
performance of search engines.  

As several people already suggested, doing single term searches on words
that have a multitude of meanings (superbowl, clinton, etc.) is really not
appropriate use of these indexes.  Neither is it appropriate or valid to
make conclusions on the quality or value of search engines based on these
tests.

Joe is right on target in that librarians have a big role to play in
helping users find information on the Web.  As part of that role, I'd like
to see us take on these two responsibilities:

--Devise valid research methods for testing and evaluating search engines. 
Given what we already know about the design of Web search engines, the
results of Joe's searches are entirely appropriate.  Few of us, however,
would use the approaches he describes if we were actually searching these
topics.

--Use and encourage our patrons to use the full range of search engines'
capabilities.  Search engines have a range of features to enhance the
quality of searches (boolean statements, field searching, techniques to
adjust relevancy ranking, etc.) and can have a dramatic effect on search
results.    

Marty Courtois
Job hunting in DC
courtois at aztec.lib.utk.edu     


On Fri, 23 Jan 1998 cadieux at librarybook.com wrote:

> Jan. 23, 1998
> 
> This morning I attempted a standard AltaVista search on "superbowl."
> I queried for hits from 21/Dec/97 and later.
> 
> For "superbowl" none of the top 5 sites had anything significant to do with
> this year's superbowl.  Two of the top five hits were sites offering
> subscriptions to nude picture archives.
>