Ebook: Web Search: Public Searching of the Web

This book brings together results from the Web search studies we conducted from 1997 through 2004. The aim of our studies has been twofold: to examine how the public at large searches the Web and to highlight trends in public Web searching. The eight-year period from 1997 to 2004 saw the beginnings and maturity of public Web searching. Commercial Web search engines have come and gone, or endured, through the fall of the dot.com companies. We saw the rise and, in some cases, the demise of several high profile, publicly available Web search engines. The study of the Web search is an exciting and important area of interdisciplinary research. Our book provides a valuable insight into the growth and development of human interaction with Web search engines. In this book, our focus is on the human aspect of the interaction between user and Web search engine. We do not investigate the Web search engines themselves or their constantly changing interfaces, algorithms and features. We focus on exploring the cognitive and user aspects of public Web searching in the aggregate. We use a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods within the overall methodology known as transaction log analysis.

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Web Search: Public Searching of the Web, co-authored by Drs. Amanda Spink and Bernard J. Jansen, is one of the first manuscripts that address the human - system interaction of Web searching in a thorough and complete manner. The authors provide an examination of Web searching from multiple levels of analysis, from theoretical overview to detailed study of term usage, and integrate these different levels of analysis into a coherent picture of how people locate information on the Web using search engines.

Drawing primarily on their own research and work in the field, the authors present the temporal changes in, the growth of, and the stability of how people interact with Web search engines. Drs. Spink and Jansen present results from an analysis of multiple search engine data sets over a six year period, giving a firsthand account of the emergence of Web searching. They also compare and contrast their findings to the results of other researchers in the field, providing a valuable bibliographic resource.

This research is directly relevant to those interested in providing information or services on the Web, along with those who research and study the Web as an information resource. Graduate students, academic and corporate researchers, search engine designers, information architects, and search engine optimizers will find the book of particular benefit.

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Web Search: Public Searching of the Web, co-authored by Drs. Amanda Spink and Bernard J. Jansen, is one of the first manuscripts that address the human - system interaction of Web searching in a thorough and complete manner. The authors provide an examination of Web searching from multiple levels of analysis, from theoretical overview to detailed study of term usage, and integrate these different levels of analysis into a coherent picture of how people locate information on the Web using search engines.

Drawing primarily on their own research and work in the field, the authors present the temporal changes in, the growth of, and the stability of how people interact with Web search engines. Drs. Spink and Jansen present results from an analysis of multiple search engine data sets over a six year period, giving a firsthand account of the emergence of Web searching. They also compare and contrast their findings to the results of other researchers in the field, providing a valuable bibliographic resource.

This research is directly relevant to those interested in providing information or services on the Web, along with those who research and study the Web as an information resource. Graduate students, academic and corporate researchers, search engine designers, information architects, and search engine optimizers will find the book of particular benefit.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
Technological, Social and Organizational Context....Pages 3-17
Human Information Behavior and Human Computer Interaction Context....Pages 19-34
Research Design....Pages 35-52
Search Terms....Pages 55-76
Search Queries....Pages 77-99
Search Sessions....Pages 101-124
E-Commerce Web Searching....Pages 127-136
Medical and Health Web Searching....Pages 137-147
Sexually-Related Web Searching....Pages 149-160
Multimedia Searching....Pages 161-177
Key Findings, Trends, Further Research and Conclusions....Pages 181-190
Back Matter....Pages 191-199

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Web Search: Public Searching of the Web, co-authored by Drs. Amanda Spink and Bernard J. Jansen, is one of the first manuscripts that address the human - system interaction of Web searching in a thorough and complete manner. The authors provide an examination of Web searching from multiple levels of analysis, from theoretical overview to detailed study of term usage, and integrate these different levels of analysis into a coherent picture of how people locate information on the Web using search engines.

Drawing primarily on their own research and work in the field, the authors present the temporal changes in, the growth of, and the stability of how people interact with Web search engines. Drs. Spink and Jansen present results from an analysis of multiple search engine data sets over a six year period, giving a firsthand account of the emergence of Web searching. They also compare and contrast their findings to the results of other researchers in the field, providing a valuable bibliographic resource.

This research is directly relevant to those interested in providing information or services on the Web, along with those who research and study the Web as an information resource. Graduate students, academic and corporate researchers, search engine designers, information architects, and search engine optimizers will find the book of particular benefit.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
Technological, Social and Organizational Context....Pages 3-17
Human Information Behavior and Human Computer Interaction Context....Pages 19-34
Research Design....Pages 35-52
Search Terms....Pages 55-76
Search Queries....Pages 77-99
Search Sessions....Pages 101-124
E-Commerce Web Searching....Pages 127-136
Medical and Health Web Searching....Pages 137-147
Sexually-Related Web Searching....Pages 149-160
Multimedia Searching....Pages 161-177
Key Findings, Trends, Further Research and Conclusions....Pages 181-190
Back Matter....Pages 191-199
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