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25
Hourly analysis of a very large topically categorized web query log
- In SIGIR ’04: Proceedings of the 27th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval
, 2004
"... We review a query log of hundreds of millions of queries that constitute the total query traffic for an entire week of a generalpurpose commercial web search service. Previously, query logs have been studied from a single, cumulative view. In contrast, our analysis shows changes in popularity and un ..."
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Cited by 81 (8 self)
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We review a query log of hundreds of millions of queries that constitute the total query traffic for an entire week of a generalpurpose commercial web search service. Previously, query logs have been studied from a single, cumulative view. In contrast, our analysis shows changes in popularity and uniqueness of topically categorized queries across the hours of the day. We examine query traffic on an hourly basis by matching it against lists of queries that have been topically pre-categorized by human editors. This represents 13 % of the query traffic. We show that query traffic from particular topical categories differs both from the query stream as a whole and from other categories. This analysis provides valuable insight for improving retrieval effectiveness and efficiency. It is also relevant to the development of enhanced query disambiguation, routing, and caching algorithms.
A survey of eigenvector methods of web information retrieval
- SIAM Rev
"... Abstract. Web information retrieval is significantly more challenging than traditional wellcontrolled, small document collection information retrieval. One main difference between traditional information retrieval and Web information retrieval is the Web’s hyperlink structure. This structure has bee ..."
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Cited by 46 (5 self)
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Abstract. Web information retrieval is significantly more challenging than traditional wellcontrolled, small document collection information retrieval. One main difference between traditional information retrieval and Web information retrieval is the Web’s hyperlink structure. This structure has been exploited by several of today’s leading Web search engines, particularly Google and Teoma. In this survey paper, we focus on Web information retrieval methods that use eigenvector computations, presenting the three popular methods of HITS, PageRank, and SALSA.
Information re-retrieval: repeat queries in yahoo’s logs
- In SIGIR ’07: Proceedings of the 30th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval
, 2007
"... People often repeat Web searches, both to find new information on topics they have previously explored and to re-find information they have seen in the past. The query associated with a repeat search may differ from the initial query but can nonetheless lead to clicks on the same results. This paper ..."
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Cited by 41 (12 self)
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People often repeat Web searches, both to find new information on topics they have previously explored and to re-find information they have seen in the past. The query associated with a repeat search may differ from the initial query but can nonetheless lead to clicks on the same results. This paper explores repeat search behavior through the analysis of a one-year Web query log of 114 anonymous users and a separate controlled survey of an additional 119 volunteers. Our study demonstrates that as many as 40 % of all queries are re-finding queries. Refinding appears to be an important behavior for search engines to explicitly support, and we explore how this can be done. We demonstrate that changes to search engine results can hinder refinding, and provide a way to automatically detect repeat searches and predict repeat clicks.
Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth
"... In this paper we report research results investigating microblogging as a form of electronic word-of-mouth for sharing consumer opinions concerning brands. We analyzed more than 150,000 microblog postings containing branding comments, sentiments, and opinions.We investigated the overall structure of ..."
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Cited by 29 (1 self)
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In this paper we report research results investigating microblogging as a form of electronic word-of-mouth for sharing consumer opinions concerning brands. We analyzed more than 150,000 microblog postings containing branding comments, sentiments, and opinions.We investigated the overall structure of these microblog postings, the types of expressions, and the movement in positive or negative sentiment.We compared automated methods of classifying sentiment in these microblogs with manual coding. Using a case study approach, we analyzed the range, frequency, timing, and content of tweets in a corporate account. Our research findings show that 19% of microblogs contain mention of a brand. Of the branding microblogs, nearly 20 % contained some expression of brand sentiments. Of these, more than 50 % were positive and 33 % were critical of the company or product. Our comparison of automated and manual coding showed no significant differences between the two approaches. In analyzing microblogs for structure and composition, the linguistic structure of tweets approximate the linguistic patterns of natural language expressions. We find that microblogging is an online tool for customer word of mouth communications and discuss the implications for corporations using microblogging as part of their overall marketing strategy.
Investigating the querying and browsing behavior of advanced search engine users
- In Proceedings of the 30th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval
, 2007
"... One way to help all users of commercial Web search engines be more successful in their searches is to better understand what those users with greater search expertise are doing, and use this knowledge to benefit everyone. In this paper we study the interaction logs of advanced search engine users (a ..."
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Cited by 16 (4 self)
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One way to help all users of commercial Web search engines be more successful in their searches is to better understand what those users with greater search expertise are doing, and use this knowledge to benefit everyone. In this paper we study the interaction logs of advanced search engine users (and those not so advanced) to better understand how these user groups search. The results show that there are marked differences in the queries, result clicks, post-query browsing, and search success of users we classify as advanced (based on their use of query operators), relative to those classified as non-advanced. Our findings have implications for how advanced users should be supported during their searches, and how their interactions could be used to help searchers of all experience levels find more relevant information and learn improved searching strategies. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 [Information Search and Retrieval]: query formulation, search process, relevance feedback.
Search log analysis: What it is, what's been done, how to do it
- Library & Information Science Research
, 2006
"... The use of data stored in transaction logs of Web search engines, Intranets, and Web sites can provide valuable insight into understanding the information-searching process of online searchers. This understanding can enlighten information system design, interface development, and devising the inform ..."
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Cited by 15 (0 self)
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The use of data stored in transaction logs of Web search engines, Intranets, and Web sites can provide valuable insight into understanding the information-searching process of online searchers. This understanding can enlighten information system design, interface development, and devising the information architecture for content collections. This article presents a review and foundation for conducting Web search transaction log analysis. A methodology is outlined consisting of three stages, which are collection, preparation, and analysis. The three stages of the methodology are presented in detail with discussions of goals, metrics, and processes at each stage. Critical terms in transaction log analysis for Web searching are defined. The strengths and limitations of transaction log analysis as a research method are presented. An application to log client-side interactions that supplements transaction logs is reported on, and the application is made available for use by the research community. Suggestions are provided on ways to leverage the strengths of, while addressing the limitations of, transaction log analysis for Web-searching research. Finally, a complete flat text transaction log from a commercial search engine is available as supplementary material with this
Analysis of the query logs of a web site search engine
- Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
, 2005
"... A large number of studies have investigated the transaction log of general-purpose search engines such as Excite and AltaVista, but few studies have reported on the analysis of search logs for search engines that are limited to particular Web sites, namely, Web site search engines. In this article, ..."
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Cited by 14 (1 self)
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A large number of studies have investigated the transaction log of general-purpose search engines such as Excite and AltaVista, but few studies have reported on the analysis of search logs for search engines that are limited to particular Web sites, namely, Web site search engines. In this article, we report our research on analyzing the search logs of the search engine of the Utah state government Web site. Our results show that some statistics, such as the number of search terms per query, of Web users are the same for general-purpose search engines and Web site search engines, but others, such as the search topics and the terms used, are considerably different. Possible reasons for the differences include the focused domain of Web site search engines and users ’ different information needs. The findings are useful for Web site developers to improve the performance of their services provided on the Web and for researchers to conduct further research in this area. The analysis also can be applied in e-government research by investigating how information should be delivered to users in government Web sites.
Patterns of Query Reformulation During Web Searching
"... Query reformulation is a key user behavior during Web search. Our research goal is to develop predictive models of query reformulation during Web searching. This article reports results from a study in which we automatically classified the query-reformulation patterns for 964,780 Web searching sessi ..."
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Cited by 12 (1 self)
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Query reformulation is a key user behavior during Web search. Our research goal is to develop predictive models of query reformulation during Web searching. This article reports results from a study in which we automatically classified the query-reformulation patterns for 964,780 Web searching sessions, composed of 1,523,072 queries, to predict the next query reformulation. We employed an n-gram modeling approach to describe the probability of users transitioning from one query-reformulation state to another to predict their next state. We developed first-, second-, third-, and fourth-order models and evaluated each model for accuracy of prediction, coverage of the dataset, and complexity of the possible pattern set. The results show that Reformulation and Assistance account for approximately 45 % of all query reformulations; furthermore, the results demonstrate that the firstand second-order models provide the best predictability, between 28 and 40 % overall and higher than 70 % for some patterns. Implications are that the n-gram approach can be used for improving searching systems and searching assistance.
Web searcher interaction with the Dogpile.com metasearch engine
- Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
"... Metasearch engines are an intuitive method for improving the performance of Web search by increasing coverage, returning large numbers of results with a focus on relevance, and presenting alternative views of information needs. However, the use of metasearch engines in an operational environment is ..."
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Cited by 10 (5 self)
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Metasearch engines are an intuitive method for improving the performance of Web search by increasing coverage, returning large numbers of results with a focus on relevance, and presenting alternative views of information needs. However, the use of metasearch engines in an operational environment is not well understood. In this study, we investigate the usage of Dogpile.com, a major Web metasearch engine, with the aim of discovering how Web searchers interact with metasearch engines. We report results examining 2,465,145 interactions from 534,507 users of Dogpile.com on May 6, 2005 and compare these results with findings from other Web searching studies. We collect data on geographical location of searchers, use of system feedback, content selection, sessions, queries, and term usage. Findings show that Dogpile.com searchers are mainly from the USA (84 % of searchers), use about 3 terms per query (mean � 2.85), implement system feedback moderately (8.4 % of users), and generally (56 % of users) spend less than one minute interacting with the Web search engine. Overall, metasearchers seem to have higher degrees of interaction than searchers on non-metasearch engines, but their sessions are for a shorter period of time. These aspects of metasearching may be what define the differences from other forms of Web searching. We discuss the implications of our findings in relation to metasearch for Web searchers, search engines, and content providers.
Understanding Temporal Query Dynamics
"... Web search is strongly influenced by time. The queries people issue change over time, with some queries occasionally spiking in popularity (e.g., earthquake) and others remaining relatively constant (e.g., youtube). Likewise, the documents indexed by a search engine change, with some documents alway ..."
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Cited by 8 (2 self)
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Web search is strongly influenced by time. The queries people issue change over time, with some queries occasionally spiking in popularity (e.g., earthquake) and others remaining relatively constant (e.g., youtube). Likewise, the documents indexed by a search engine change, with some documents always being about a particular query (e.g., the Wikipedia page on earthquakes is about the query earthquake) and others being about the query only at a particular point in time (e.g., the New York Times is only about earthquakes following a major seismic activity). The relationship between documents and queries can also change as people’s intent changes (e.g., people sought different content for the query earthquake before the Haitian earthquake than they did after). In this paper, we explore how queries, their associated documents, and the query intent change over the course of 10 weeks by analyzing query log data, a daily Web crawl, and periodic human relevance judgments. We identify several interesting features by which changes to query popularity can be classified, and show that presence of these features, when accompanied by changes in result content, can be a good indicator of change in query intent.

