Internet Resources Discovery (IRD)

Meta-Search Engines (MSEs)

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Contents• Meta Search Engine (MSE)• Why use several SEs?• Highlighted MSEs• Hebrew MSEs• MSE comparison• When to use MSE – pros and cons• How to choose MSE?

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Search Engines Generations

• 1st Generation - Basic SEs:

• 2nd Generation - Meta SEs:

• 3rd Generation - Popularity SEs:

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2nd Generation SEs - MetaSEs• Using several SEs in parallel.• The results are filtered, ranked and

presented to the user as a uniformed list.• The ranking is a combination of the

number of sources each page appeared in, and the ranking in each source.

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Meta SE is a Meta-Service• It doesn’t use an Index/database of its

own.• It uses other external search services that

provide the information necessary to fulfill user queries.

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Meta Search Engine

MetaCrawler

Yahoo Web Crawler Open Text Lycos InfoSeek Inktomi Galaxy Excite

Google · Yahoo · Jeeves Ask About · LookSmart · OvertureFindWhat

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Premises of a Meta SE

• No single search is sufficient.• Problem in expressing the query.• Low quality references can be detected.

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Why use Several SEs?• Search Engines differ more than we think!

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Overlap between Google and Yahoo

Source: Jux2 analysis of 500 top search terms, April 2004http://www.jux2.com/stats.php

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Who Overlaps Whom?

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Try it yourself @ jux2

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MSE - Motivation

1. The number and variety of SEs.2. Each SE provides an incomplete snapshot of Web.3. Users are forced to try and retry their queries across

different SEs.4. Each SE has its own interface.5. Irrelevant, outdated or unavailable responses.6. Each query is independent.7. No individual customization.8. The result is not homogenized.

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Problems of MSEs• No advanced search options.• Using the lowest common denominator.• Sponsored results from the SEs are not

highlighted.

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Highlighted MSEs

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Mamma

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Dogpile

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Dogpile Advanced (1)

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Dogpile Advanced (2)

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Dogpile Advanced (3)

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Dogpile Advanced (4)

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Dogpile Preferences (1)

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Dogpile Preferences (2)

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Vivisimo• Vivísimo supports the most advanced features

of the major search engines.• Need to just use Vivísimo syntax, which

follows the most standard conventions. • Vivísimo translates your query into the

corresponding syntax of each underlying search engine.

• Also, Vivísimo only queries the search engines that support your chosen syntax.

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Vivisimo Advanced (1)

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Vivisimo Advanced (2)

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Clusty

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Ixquick (1)

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Ixquick (2)

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Ixquick (3)

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KartOO – Visual MSE

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MetaSEs in Hebrew

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When to use a MSE?• When single Basic-SE fails to provide good

results. • One-stop shopping - prefer to search multiple

SEs/sites at once to get blended ranked results (so as to save effort/time).

• Searching for multi-faceted topics. • Want to get clustered results to focus search

on the relevant keywords. • Looking for current events/news.

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MSE pros• Useful when you want to retrieve a relatively

small number of relevant results. • An excellent choice for obscure topics. • A good option when you are not having luck

finding what you want when you search. • Appropriate when you want to get an overall

picture of what is available on the Web on your topic.

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MSE cons• Use is limited primarily to simple queries. • Little or no field searching is available. • Most services return a limited number of results

that do not represent the total results from any source engine.

• Sponsored results are not highlighted (even though probably not first).

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How to Choose your MetaSE

• Search engines used• Operators supported• Special features• Speed• Presentation

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Meta-SEs Features Chart

Red – not working

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Practical RecommendationsUse Ixquick for fast results and maximal

syntax flexibility.Use Vivisimo/Clusty (as a start) for

Clustering and/or Hebrew.Use Dogpile to include Google, date

range, or spelling corrections.Use none for non-MSE tasks

(see MSE cons)…

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Bibliography• http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/etzioni/papers/m

etacrawler.pdf• http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/etzioni/papers/ie

ee-metacrawler.pdf• http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156241• http://vivisimo.com/advanced?form=Advanced• http://vivisimo.com/help.html• http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/

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