SUMMARY TABLE |
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|---|---|---|---|
Search Terms |
 |
 |
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| Spiderman | |||
| Spiderman powers | |||
| Spiderman powers history | |||
| "Spiderman's powers" | |||
| "Spiderman's powers" history | |||
The advent of the Age of Information Technology has dramatically increased the amount of information at our fingertips. The World Wide Web provides a forum for the seamless and instantaneous exchange of information from the most remote areas of the world, creating a global community of shared resources, knowledge, and information. However, this revolutionary technology has also caused information overload. Search engines play the role of both seekers and siphons of information. We depend on search engines to not only find information about the topic we are searching, but also to help us categorize and seek out the most relevant information to make our quest for knowledge as efficient as possible. Thus, the intended audience of this review are general users who are overwhelmed by the vast amount of information available on the Internet.
This report will compare and contrast the features of Google, Lycos, and Teoma. These three search engines were chosen because they use very different methodologies for seeking data. Specifically, this report will focus on the relevance of the results that each search engine produces. The search topic used in this analysis is Spiderman - specifically the way Spiderman got his powers. Although I know general information about Spiderman, I do not know the specifics about how he obtained his powers.
Google is the most comprehensive search engine on the web. With an index of over 2 billion URLs, Google has the largest index of any crawler-based search engine. The cornerstone of Google's crawler is the PageRank system - a unique and extremely sophisticated system based on link analysis to rank the relevance of the results. This system analyzes not only the number of links to a particular page, but also the reputation of the referring pages, bringing up pages that have been referred by other important or legitimate pages. Google then combines PageRank with text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to a search. The Google search is based on simplicity - users simply type in all the words they are looking for - Boolean operators are unnecessary. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" option takes users directly to the website which Google ranks as having the highest relevance.
Google displays pages that match the search criteria in order of relevance. Because of the enormity of Google's index, broad searches, such as "Spiderman" return a huge number of matches. Thus, Google is very good for providing general information, with the first few matches of any search, regardless of the number of results, providing the most relevant and reliable information. For more specific information, such as the history of Spiderman's powers, using a phrase, such as "Spiderman's powers" is very helpful in narrowing down the search.
Lycos is powered by Terralycos, a provider of websites and services. Lycos started out as a search engine that depended on the listings that came from spidering the web. In 1999, it shifted to a directory structure, with its main listings coming from AllTheWeb.com. This search engine allows Boolean operators AND and OR (AND being the default operator), as well as exact phrase searches. Searches can be specified by subject (such as books, downloads, etc.) or by page specifics (such as title, URL, host/domain). Lycos then uses spiders to scan its directory of pages for any matching terms or phrases. Pages are displayed in order of the most matches of search terms.
Lycos displays featured results, results from the Lycos Network, and then general web page results. The featured results are listings of paid sponsors of Lycos, and are generally selling products via the web. The results from my most basic "Spiderman" search and the more specific "Spiderman's powers" search had the highest relevance. The other searches produced many results that were not related to the topic. Due to the directory based system powered by Boolean operators, when additional search terms are added, since AND is the default operator, topics containing either of the words are displayed. Thus, in order to find specific information, it is especially important to use phrase searches.
Teoma is a brand new search engine that is described as a new type of hybrid between a search engine and a directory. Teoma's point of differentiation is in the results it offers for search queries. This search engine goes beyond the traditional keyword and text analysis and seeks out "hubs" and "authorities" related to the query terms - ultimately creating a "social network" of related content that forms a "community" about the topic. With an index of only 200 million pages, Teoma does not compete on size, but rather the real time and query specific nature of its searches. Like Google, Teoma conducts full text searches, so Boolean operators are unnecessary.
Teoma offers three kinds of results for each query: "Relevant web pages", which is what every search engine provides; "Refine", which is a list of suggestions to narrow your search; and "Resources", which are link collections from experts and enthusiasts. The refine links allow you to drill down into a community and find information you cannot easily find with traditional approaches. The results from all of the searches were extremely relevant, although in general there were fewer matches, due to the small index size. However, when a phrase is used to narrow a search, such as "Spiderman's powers", it becomes too specific to incorporate the "Refine" and "Resources" features.
SUMMARY TABLE |
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|---|---|---|---|
Search Terms |
|
|
|
| Spiderman | |||
| Spiderman powers | |||
| Spiderman powers history | |||
| "Spiderman's powers" | |||
| "Spiderman's powers" history | |||
CONCLUSION
Of the three search engines, Google was the most comprehensive, as a function of its huge index. However, in spite of the enormity of information it draws from, the results were relevant, especially for the broader searches. Unfortunately, if the topic is too broad, in may take time to find specific information because of the vast repository it draws from. Between Lycos and Teoma, I found Teoma to produce much more relevant matches, in addition to the advantages of forming a cyber-community around your search topic. However, the Teoma's small index limits it as a stand-alone search engine, and is probably better used as a supplement to another crawler. Lycos is best for searches with multiple terms that are not directly related to each other. Its use of Boolean operators allows it to provide high relevance to such searches. However, for more specific queries, using phrase searches in Lycos greatly increases relevance.
For more information, please refer to the following sources of this review:
