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IST 497E Information Retrieval and Organization

IST 497E Information Retrieval and Organization. Meta Search. Overview. What is a Meta Search Engine Features Differences Architecture Some Meta Search Engines Conclusions and Future ?. What is a Meta Search Engine ?. What is a Meta Search Engine ?. Traveling Further.

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IST 497E Information Retrieval and Organization

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  1. IST 497E Information Retrieval and Organization Meta Search IST 497 E Meta-Search, Pradeep Teregowda

  2. Overview • What is a Meta Search Engine • Features • Differences • Architecture • Some Meta Search Engines • Conclusions and Future ?

  3. What is a Meta Search Engine ? What is a Meta Search Engine ? Traveling Further Why Meta Search ? Overview

  4. What Is a Meta Search Engine ? • Dictionary meaning for Meta: “more comprehensive : transcending.”- webster.com • Simple Explanation “A Meta Search engine allows you to search multiple search engines at once, returning more comprehensive and relevant results, fast.” –MetaCrawler {modified}

  5. Traveling Further • A little bit of History: • Started with Harvest (1995) –[Ref: Information Discovery and Access System – C. Mic Bowman et al]. • Was developed for gathering information from repositories, building topic-specific content indexes, web-caching,flexible searching. • In many ways current Meta Search engines have similar aims.

  6. Why Are Meta Search Engines Useful ? • Meta Search improves the Search Quality in many ways: • Comprehensive, • Efficient, • One query queries all {one-click paradigm},

  7. Why Meta Search ? • Individual Search engines don’t cover all the web by themselves, • Individual Search Engines are prone to spamming {people trying to raise their ranking profile. In a non-legitimate manner or to promote commerce}, • Difficulty in deciding and obtaining results with combined searches on different search engines,

  8. Why Meta Search ? • Data Fusion {multiple formats supported}, • In Case of niche search engines provides the ‘big picture’, • Takes less effort.

  9. Features Features Overview

  10. Features. • Unifies the Search Interface and provides a consistent user interface, • Standardizes the query structure, • May make use of an independent ranking method for the results {rank-merging}, • May have an independent ranking system for each search engine/database it searches, • Meta Search is not a search for Meta Data.

  11. Differences Differences {Search vs. Meta Search}. Overview

  12. Differences {Search Vs. Meta-search} • Doesn’t generally have a Database by itself, • Does not search{crawl} the web. • A Meta-Search Engine in terms of search engine. • Essentially is a hub of search engines/databases accessible by a common interface providing the user with results which may/may not be ranked independently of the original search engine/source ranking.

  13. Overview Architecture/Internals A block representation, What do those blocks do ?, Queries, Ranking.

  14. Architecture Feedback Knowledge Personalize Dispatcher Query User Interface User S E 1 S E 2 S E 3 Web Display

  15. What Do Those Blocks Do ? • User Interface • Normally resemble search engine interfaces with options for • Types of search [Media] • Search Engines to Use • Dispatcher • Generates actual queries to the search engines by using the user query • May involve choosing/expanding search engines to use

  16. What Do Those Blocks Do ? • Display. • Generates Results page from the replies received, May involve ranking,parsing,clustering of the search results or just plain stitching. • Personalization/Knowledge. • May contain either or both. Personalization may involve weighting of search results/query/engine for each user.

  17. Queries • STARTS { protocol }. • A simple protocol that text search engines should follow to facilitate searching and indexing multiple collections of text documents. • Choosing best source for a query, • Evaluating a query at those sources, • Merging the query results from them. • Inquirus: Expand Queries. Ex: (What does Satellite stand for = Satellite stands for).

  18. Independent Ranking • Stitch together the results [Dogpile], • Selection of a particular Search Engine based on a query – a meta index [SavySearch-Resource Balancing], • Rank merging based on Search Engine rating [MetaCrawler], • Context analysis for search results with respect to the query [Inquirus].

  19. Fusion of Other Media • Inquirus. • Motivation for a meta-search {Images}: • Queries from the user can be modified, since individual search engines are good at different types of queries the results are very good. • How ? • See Reference {Skipped because of topic overlap}. • Can it work for others ? • Example: FTP,Music – Probably yes [P2P searches].

  20. Other Work • Other work {Media Fusion}. • MetaSEEk. • Visual Search Engine [for images], • Makes use of query by example. • Ixquick. • MP3,Images,News.[all come from different search interfaces –may not exactly be fusion]. • Dogpile. • Multimedia,Images,News,Files.

  21. Overview Some Meta Search Engines On the web, Why are they not so popular ?, Some Reviews.

  22. Meta search Engines on the Web • MetaCrawler, • Ixquick, • Inquirus, • SavySearch {now cnet search ?}, • Dogpile, • Sherlockhound, • Vivisimo.

  23. Why Are They Not So Popular ? • Ads ! • Some Meta Search engines pick up ads as part of search results from the participating search engines. • Example: Dogpile. • Similar reasons as general search engines (ads clutter search results). • Example: MetaCrawler,Ixquick. • Paid Placement Search Engines included, • Relation with the search engines they depend on. {load,interaction}….

  24. Why Are They Not So Popular ? • Results as good as the worst search engine in the group. • Combining results using meta-index and rankings can lead to incorrectly ranked results from a search engine reducing the relevance of correct results. • If your highly ranked search engine returns a badly ranked result, then your results are also badly ranked.

  25. Some Reviews • Search Engine Watch [May 2001]

  26. Conclusions and Future Conclusions and Future Overview

  27. Conclusions and Future • Vivisimo reported 43 % increase in traffic –[wired.com Aug. 14, 2001], • Apple ‘Sherlock’ has been popular, • Multiple Media Search, • P2P Searches ?, • Growth or Niche Search Engines.

  28. References • The MetaCrawler Architecture for Resource Aggregation on the web(1997) – Erik Selberg & Oren Etzioni. • Context and Page Analysis for Improved Web Search(1998) –Steve Lawrence & C. Lee Giles. • Experiences with Selecting Search Engines Using Metasearch(1997) – Daniel Dreilinger & Adele E. Howe.

  29. Time to Wake Up…

  30. Web References • Search Engine Watch Article [Meta Search Or Meta Ads?], • Wired Article [Searching For Google’s Successor], • MetaSEEk [Writeup], • Text and Image Meta Search on the Web[Citeseer Paper Reference].

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