Web Search: Public Searching of the Web

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. The Context of Web Search

   1. Technological, Social and Organizational Context

      Pages 3-17

   2. Human Information Behavior and Human Computer Interaction Context

      Pages 19-34

   3. Research Design

      Pages 35-52

3. How People Search the Web

   1. Search Terms

      Pages 55-76

   2. Search Queries

      Pages 77-99

   3. Search Sessions

      Pages 101-124

4. Subjects of Web Search

   1. E-Commerce Web Searching

      Pages 127-136

   2. Medical and Health Web Searching

      Pages 137-147

   3. Sexually-Related Web Searching

      Pages 149-160

   4. Multimedia Searching

      Pages 161-177

5. Conclusion

   1. Key Findings, Trends, Further Research and Conclusions

      Pages 181-190

6. Back Matter

   Pages 191-199

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This book brings together results from the Web search studies we conducted from 1997 through 2004. The aim of our studies has been twofold: to examine how the public at large searches the Web and to highlight trends in public Web searching. The eight-year period from 1997 to 2004 saw the beginnings and maturity of public Web searching. Commercial Web search engines have come and gone, or endured, through the fall of the dot.com companies. We saw the rise and, in some cases, the demise of several high profile, publicly available Web search engines. The study of the Web search is an exciting and important area of interdisciplinary research. Our book provides a valuable insight into the growth and development of human interaction with Web search engines. In this book, our focus is on the human aspect of the interaction between user and Web search engine. We do not investigate the Web search engines themselves or their constantly changing interfaces, algorithms and features. We focus on exploring the cognitive and user aspects of public Web searching in the aggregate. We use a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods within the overall methodology known as transaction log analysis.

• E-Commerce
• behavior
• computer
• human-computer interaction (HCI)
• interaction
• multimedia
• organization

• University of Pittsburgh, USA

  Amanda Spink

• The Pennsylvania State University, USA

  Bernhard J. Jansen

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