Search engines and information retrieval over the WWW

Abstract

Searching and retrieving the right information from the web has always been considered of foremost importance and of considerable AI intensivity. Internet search technologies have been evolving over the years and will continue to do so as the the World-Wide Web (WWW) will continue to expand in size and increase in popularity. The WWW was developed to take advantage of the already established vast collection of inter-connected networks, known as the Internet, and allow its users to access and share knowledge and information by clicking the mouse on an appropriate interface. The wide spread use of the \~VVW has resulted in a considerable increase in the number of servers connected to servers, additional users going on-line, and amounts of further information being added. As a direct consequence of this popularity and its associated ever escalating quantity of information being available, a problem of efficiently and effectively identifying and retrieving relevant resources with a user's required knowledge has become an important research issue. Despite the potential benefits to users of utilising existing indexing, retrieving and searching techniques to assist them in the browsing and retrieval process the service provided leaves much to be desired. Therefore improving the process of searching for specific information on the information resource base has become a matter of great importance and urgency, as the initial objectives of developing this pool of knowledge so that it could be shared easily, are being overtaken by the adverse effects of poor quality information and information overload