Lab: Search Engine Follies

CS 102

Sept. 11, 1998

The purpose of this lab is to study some of the techniques used in narrowing the number of keyword ``hits'' one receives from a search engine. In this lab, we'll look at some fairly mechanical techniques.

Method

1. Work in groups of two or three, using one or two computers.

2. You will need to have a total of three windows open: an Internet Explorer window to view this lab, another Internet Explorer window to conduct the AltaVista searches, and an MS Word window to record your observations.

3. Using MS Word, write a brief lab report summarizing your results. The report should be well organized, nicely formatted, and use correct spelling and grammar. (Don't forget --- Word has tools to check spelling and grammar. Use them. If you don't know where they are or how to use them, ask me to show you.) The following information should be contained in the report:
   1. Title and names of group members.

   2. Brief introduction.

   3. Data section: search performed and number of hits.

   4. Analysis section:
      1. An explanation of the number of hits returned by each of the searches. Comment on the likely usefulness or uselessness of each of the searches.

      2. The URLs of the five Web pages you are evaluating, the evaluation criteria you have established for ranking the pages, and the ranking of the pages.

4. Save the report and e-mail a copy to me as an e-mail attachment. Put Web search lab in the subject field of your e-mail. (I only need one lab report from each group.)

Data Collection

Let's say we're interested in the topic of personal privacy. Using AltaVista, perform the following searches, recording the number of hits received from each search:

1. personal privacy

2. Personal Privacy (Note: the two words are capitalized. Be observant of that in the succeeding searches.)

3. +personal +privacy

4. +Personal +Privacy

5. Click on the Advanced link (near the top on the right) and in the Boolean expression field type in the search personal NEAR privacy.

6. In Advanced search, Personal NEAR Privacy

7. Near the top on the right, click the Search link to return to the basic search page. Perform this search: "personal privacy"

8. "Personal Privacy"

9. title:"personal privacy"

Analysis of Data

1. You now have a set of searches and the number of hits each search returned. Why did they return varying numbers of hits? Following the help link, study the help page and explain the varying number of hits returned by each search. Comment on which search or searches are most likely to return the most useful results.

2. Using the results of the final search, record the URLs of, and study, the first five Web pages returned by the search. On your own, establish five criteria for evaluating these pages and apply these criteria to the pages in order to rank them.