Architecture of a Metasearch Engine That Supports User Information Needs

When a query is submitted to a metasearch engine, decisions are made with respect to the underlying search engines to be used, what modifications will be made to the query, and how to score the results. These decisions are typically made by considering only the user’s keyword query, neglecting the larger information need. Users with specific needs, such as “research papers” or “homepages,” are not able to expresstheseneedsin a way that affects the decisions madeby the metasearchengine. In this paper,we describe a metasearch engine architecture that considers the user’s information need for each decision. Users with different needs, Sut the same keyword query, may search different sub-search engines, have different modifications made to their query, and have results ordered differently. Our architecture combines several powerful approaches together in a single generalpurpose metasearchengine.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: CIKM
• Authors: Eric J. Glover, Steve Lawrence, William P. Birmingham, C. Lee Giles
• Keywords: CIKM 1999, Information Management, Keyword Query, Metasearch Engine, User’s Keyword Query