[Web4lib] Common queries and common misspellings

[Richard Wiggins]

Karen,

Yes, I've played with Wordtracker.  They have an interesting slant on search
engine optimization -- helping you find keywords that are moderately
popular, not extremely popular.  The theory is that extremely popular terms,
found at the "short head" of the Zipf curve (as opposed to the newly-famous
"long tail" of the curve) are unlikely to benefit you much.  If you make
sure the word "research" appears on a university page, for instance, that's
such a common search term that it's unlikely to benefit you, unless you've
got MIT or Stanford's PageRank.

Obviously SEO is not what you're pursuing with this study.  Maybe the
Wordtracker people would help you with your quest?

A naughty project that I've been tempted to try before is searching for
popular misspellings on prominent Web sites.  You would not believe how many
very prominent places publish online calenders.

/rich

On 2/17/06, Michael McCulley <drweb at san.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
> Karen,
>
> I blogged this item recently.. see
> http://drweb.typepad.com/dwdomain/2006/02/typographical_e.html
>
> "Typographical errors in library databases
> by Terry Ballard
> Revised February 2, 2006
> by Tina Gunther and Terry Ballard
>
> This list started as a byproduct of a keyword inspection of the online
> catalog of Adelphi University in 1991. That study was inspired by a
> cataloger at Harvard named Jeffrey Beall, who found errors in the Library
> of
> Congress catalog, and reported on a list of test words in the journal
> American Libraries. Early in the process I found that words appearing more
> than once in the Adelphi catalog were almost always found in other OPACs
> of
> similar size or larger."
>
> Hope that helps..
>
> Best,
> Michael
>
> --
> P. Michael McCulley aka DrWeb
> mailto:drweb at san.rr.com
> San Diego, CA
> http://drweb.typepad.com/
>
> Quote of the Moment:
> There are two kinds of pedestrians -- the quick and the dead.
> Friday, February 17, 2006 6:06:55 PM
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> >[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of K.G. Schneider
> >Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 2:35 PM
> >To: web4lib at webjunction.org; lita-l at ala.org
> >Subject: [Web4lib] Common queries and common misspellings
> >
> >As a continuation to a previous post, Has anyone on Web4Lib or LITA-L
> >recently done any search query logging and/or analysis that they'd be
> >willing to share with us? We're evaluating search engines this
> >spring (with
> >an emphasis on faceted engines, if you're curious) and we're
> >interested in
> >both our own data and OPD (Other People's Data).
> >
> >I'm broadening my search for current examples of frequently-used search
> >terms and common misspellings keyed into web search engines,
> >and possibly
> >also OPACs and library websites.
> >
> >I found an interesting website:
> >
> >http://www.wordtracker.com/
> >
> >And subscribed to the free weekly mailing. Their fee-based
> >product looks
> >interesting too. Has anyone here used it?
> >
> >Karen G. Schneider
> >Librarians' Internet Index
> >http://lii.org kgs at lii.org
> >Websites you can trust!
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Web4lib mailing list
> >Web4lib at webjunction.org
> >http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
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