[Sigia-l] "Best Bets" or "Accidental Thesaurus" Examples?

[MJJAIXEN at up.com]

Why not?  Well, for one reason, this is a fairly new phenomenon.  I think I
first saw this about a year ago.  Another reason is that most sites just
plug in a full-text search engine, play with the parameters, and call it
good.  Many people aren't aware of it - especially those who give you a
puzzled look when you say "IA".

A "Best Bets" search engine usually requires a second indexing and
searching
mechanism.  It also requires someone to manually maintain the index, since
you just can't let the robot maintain the best bets.  I'm working on a
manual keyword search engine that I can combine with HTDig to provide a
more comprehensive search facility than we've ever had.  The work is part
in defining the index and part in merging the HTDig results with the
keyword search results.


"Richard Wiggins" <rich at richardwiggins.com> wrote:
> The question is, if so few unique search terms can yield so much paydirt,
> why don't more people do this?  In fact, shouldn't EVERY intranet search
> engine include a Best Bets service at the top of the hit list?  Or, if
more
> people do it, would you please send me examples?