Identifying ambiguous queries in web search

It is widely believed that some queries submitted to search engines are by nature ambiguous (e.g., java, apple). However, few studies have investigated the questions of "how many queries are ambiguous?" and "how can we automatically identify an ambiguous query?" This paper deals with these issues. First, we construct the taxonomy of query ambiguity, and ask human annotators to manually classify queries based upon it. From manually labeled results, we find that query ambiguity is to some extent predictable. We then use a supervised learning approach to automatically classify queries as being ambiguous or not. Experimental results show that we can correctly identify 87% of labeled queries. Finally, we estimate that about 16% of queries in a real search log are ambiguous. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval ? query formulation; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces ? ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: WWW
• Authors: Ruihua Song, Zhenxiao Luo, Ji-Rong Wen, Yong Yu, Hsiao-Wuen Hon
• Keywords: Internet Technology, Keywords Ambiguous Query, Query Ambiguity, Query Formulation, WWW 2007