Bilkent University
Department of Computer Engineering
S E M I N A R

 

Characterizing and Handling Queries with Very Few or No Results

 

Erdem Sarıgil
MSc Student
Computer Engineering Department
Bilkent University

Despite the continuous efforts to improve the web search quality, a non-negligible fraction of user queries end up with very few or even no matching results in leading commercial web search engines. In this work, we provide the first detailed characterization of such queries based on an analysis of a real-life query log. Our experimental setup allows us to characterize the queries with few/no results and compare the mechanisms employed by the three major search engines to handle them. We also identify a number of directions that can be explored to generate results for no-answer queries (NAQs).

Keywords: Web search engines, search result quality, query difficulty

 

DATE: 14 May, 2012, Monday @ 17:00
PLACE: EA409