[WEB4LIB] Re: metadata for site searches

[Nancy Sosna Bohm]

I used a search engine from http://www.objectweaver.de/ice/ and was not
satisfied because the "stop words" that the engine included from my content
were all related to important subjects.  In other words, a searcher looking
for "book reviews" would encounter a message that declared "book" and
"review" were stop words.  Presently I don't have a search engine on my
sites, but it seems that the webmaster must be able to control phrase
indexing if a search engine is to be useful.

----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Edelblute <thomas at anaheim.lib.ca.us>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, September 24, 1999 2:36 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: metadata for site searches


> I have to disagree.  Free text searching yields too many false drops,
often over
> 50%.  I am a firm believer in using a controlled vocabulary with adequate
> cross-references.  I would recommend a full authority file to keep track
of the
> defenitions, cross-references and variant spellings encountered (i.e.
sulfur,
> sulphur: soybeans, soyabeans, Glycine Max L.).  Variant spellings add to
the
> problem of finding what you want because your full text might have the
search
> term on way whereas the you are searching for it with a different
spelling.  By
> having a browsable index you reduce this problem.
>
> Avi Rappoport wrote:
>
> > I do not recommend searching on just keywords.  While it does cut
> > down the amount of junk you get back, it also makes it impossible to
> > search for vocabulary and concepts that are slightly different from
> > those of the indexer.  There is nothing more frustrating than
> > searching for an item you *know* is there but can't get to.
> >
> > A free text search engine that allows users to specify when they want
> > All words in a search and a good relevance ranking algorithm should
> > give you reasonably good results.
> >
> > Check out my site, <http://www.searchtools.com/> for information on
> > all available site, Intranet and portal search engines.
> >
> > Best of luck,
> >
> > Avi
> >
> > At 9:41 AM -0700 9/24/99, Luck, Deanne wrote:
> > >We are in the midst of a total redesign of our web site, and I want to
> > >include a "search this site" feature, which we've never had before.  I
often
> > >find searches on other sites to be very unhelpful due to either the
display
> > >of the results or the fact that it's searching the full text and
returns too
> > >much.  I am looking into assigning metadata keywords to our pages, and
by
> > >default only searching those keywords.  My questions for anyone who has
done
> > >this or has thought about it are:  Is it worth the trouble to assign
the
> > >keywords, or is it almost as useful just to have descriptive titles?
If so,
> > >how many keywords should be assigned to each page?  Should we develop a
> > >controlled vocabulary?
> > >
> > >Also, what are the best packages to use for both search options and a
good
> > >results display?  Is SWISH-E far and away the best?  We are running IIS
on
> > >an NT machine.
> >
> > ________________________________________________________________
> > Avi Rappoport, Search Tools Maven: <mailto:avirr at lanminds.com>
> > Guide to Site Indexing and Local Search Engines:
<http://www.searchtools.com>
>
>
>
> --
> Thomas Edelblute
> Anaheim Public Library
>