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Description

Five search engines, Alta Vista, Excite, Hotbot, Infoseek, and Lycos, are compared for precision on the first twenty results returned for fifteen queries. All searching was done from January 31 to March 12, 1997. Steps have been taken to ensure that bias has not unduly influence the evaluation. Friedmann's randomized block design is used to perform multiple comparisons for significance. Analysis shows that Alta Vista, Excite and Infoseek are the top three services, with their relative rank changing depending on how one interpreted the concept of "relevant."

Citation:

Leighton, H. Vernon and Jaideep Srivastava. "First 20 Precision among World Wide Web Search Services (Search Engines)." Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50 (July 19, 1999): 870-881. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(1999)50:10< 870::AID-ASI4>3.0.CO;2-G

Publication Date

7-19-1999

Publisher

Journal of the American Society for Information Science

Location

Winona, Minnesota

Keywords

WEB search engines; DATABASE searching; INFORMATION retrieval; Precision (information science)

Department

Library

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities

First 20 Precision among World Wide Web Search Services (Search Engines)

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