Web query

Types of Web Queries - Informational queries cover broad topics and can have thousands of relevant results. - Navigational queries seek a single website or web page of a single entity. - Transactional queries reflect the intent of the user to perform a particular action. - Connectivity queries report on the connectivity of the indexed web graph. - Search engines often support a fourth type of query, which is used less frequently. Characteristics of Web Queries - The average length of a query is 2.4 terms. - About half of the users enter a single query, while less than a third enter three or more unique queries. - Close to half of the users only examine the first one or two pages of results. - Less than 5% of users use advanced search features like boolean operators. - The most frequently used terms are often empty search, and, of, and sex. Structured Queries - Users can use Boolean operators and parentheses to create structured queries. - Faceted queries are conjunctions of characteristic words. - Faceted queries allow users to find documents even if they omit certain words. - This technique is traditionally used by librarians. - It helps users find documents that cover several topics or facets. Related Concepts - Information retrieval is related to web search. - Web search engine is the tool used for web queries. - Web query classification categorizes queries into types. - Taxonomy for search engines organizes search engine features. - User intent plays a role in web queries. References - A taxonomy of web search was proposed by Broder in 2002. - Jansen, Booth, and Spink conducted a study on the intent of web queries in 2008. - Sanderson and Kohler analyzed geographic queries in 2004. - Baeza-Yates discussed applications of web query mining in 2005. - Figueroa explored effective features for recognizing user intent behind web queries in 2015.