Smith AG. "Think local, search global? Comparing search engines for searching geographically specific information" Online Information Review 27(2):102-109 2003

[Eugene Garfield]

Alistair G. Smith :  Alastair.Smith at vuw.ac.nz


TITLE    Think local, search global? Comparing search engines for
         searching geographically specific information

AUTHOR   Smith AG

JOURNAL  ONLINE INFORMATION REVIEW  27 (2): 102-109 2003

 Document type: Article    Language: English
 Cited References: 14
Times Cited: 0


Abstract:
This study evaluates the retrieval of New Zealand information using three
local New Zealand search engines, four major global search engines and three
metasearch engines. Searches for NZ topics were carried out on all the
search engines, and the relative recall calculated. The local search engines
did not achieve higher recall than the global search engines or metasearch
engines, but no search engine achieved more than 45 percent recall. Despite
the theoretical advantage of searching the databases of several individual
search engines, metasearch engines did not achieve higher recall. Of
relevant pages for the queries, 36 percent were outside the nz
domain. Implications for searching for geographically specific information,
and for evaluation of search engines, are discussed.

Author Keywords:
search engines, information retrieval, evaluation, geographic information
systems, New Zealand

KeyWords Plus:
WORLD-WIDE-WEB, RECALL, PRECISION

Addresses:
Smith AG, Victoria Univ Wellington, Sch Informat Management, Wellington, New
Zealand
Victoria Univ Wellington, Sch Informat Management, Wellington, New Zealand

Publisher:
EMERALD, BRADFORD

IDS Number:
681MY

ISSN:
1468-4527

 Cited Author            Cited Work                Volume      Page   Year

 BARILAN J             SCIENTOMETRICS                42       207      1998
 CLARKE SJ             ASLIB PROC                    49       184      1997
 DRESEL R              WISSENSCHAFT PRAXIS           52       381      2001
 FRICKE M              J INFORM SCI                  24       409      1998
 GLANDERHOBEL C        ONLINE INFORM REV             25       257      2001
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 JACSO P               INFORM TODAY                  18        28      2001
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 LOBO MDO              REV ESPANOLA DOCUMEN          23        63      2000
 NOTESS GR             SEARCH ENGINE STAT R                            2002
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 TOMAIUOLO N           SEARCHER                       7        30      1999