Witten, IH (Witten, Ian H.) Searching ... in a web JOURNAL OF UNIVERSAL COMPUTER SCIENCE, 14 (10): 1739-1762 2008

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Address: ihw at cs.waikato.ac.nz 

Author(s): Witten, IH (Witten, Ian H.) 

Title: Searching ... in a web 

Source: JOURNAL OF UNIVERSAL COMPUTER SCIENCE, 14 (10): 1739-1762 2008 

Language: English 

Document Type: Proceedings Paper 

Author Keywords: search engines; web search; PageRank; search bias; 
privacy; personalization; information ethics 
Abstract: Search engines-"web dragons"-are the portals through which we 
access society's treasure trove of information. They do not publish the 
algorithms they use to sort and filter information, yet what they do and 
how they do it are amongst the most important questions of our time. They 
deal not just with information per se, but evaluate it in order to 
prioritize it for the user. To do this they assess the prestige of each 
web page in terms of who links to it. This article explains in non-
technical terms what is known about how web search engines work. We 
describe the dominant way of measuring prestige, relating it to the 
experience of a surfer condemned to click randomly around the web forever-
and also to standard techniques of bibliometric evaluation. We review 
alternatives: some strive to identify subcommunities of the web; others 
learn based on implicit user feedback. We also takes a critical look at 
how people use search engines, and identify issues of bias, privacy, and 
personalization that crucially affect our world of information today. 

Addresses: Univ Waikato, Dept Comp Sci, Hamilton, New Zealand 

Reprint Address: Witten, IH, Univ Waikato, Dept Comp Sci, Hamilton, New 
Zealand. 

E-mail Address: ihw at cs.waikato.ac.nz 

Cited Reference Count: 13 

Times Cited: 0 

Publisher: GRAZ UNIV TECHNOLGOY, INST INFORMATION SYSTEMS COMPUTER MEDIA-
IICM 

Publisher Address: INFFELDGASSE 16C, GRAZ, A-8010, AUSTRIA 

ISSN: 0948-695X 

29-char Source Abbrev.: J UNIVERS COMPUT SCI 

ISO Source Abbrev.: J. Univers. Comput. Sci. 

Source Item Page Count: 24 

Subject Category: Computer Science, Software Engineering; Computer 
Science, Theory & Methods 

ISI Document Delivery No.: 356DW 

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