Information Retrieval on the Web

摘要

How do we find information on the Web? Although information on the Web is distributed and decentralized, the Web can be viewed as a single, virtual document collection. In that regard, the fundamental questions and approaches of traditional information retrieval (IR) research (e.g., term weighting, query expansion) are likely to be relevant in Web document retrieval. Findings from traditional IR research, however, may not always be applicable in a Web setting. The Web document collection-massive in size and diverse in content, format, purpose, and quality-challenges the validity of previous research findings that are based on relatively small and homogeneous test collections. Moreover, some traditional IR approaches, although applicable in theory, may be impossible or impractical to implement in a Web setting. For instance, the size, distribution, and dynamic nature of Web information make it extremely difficult to construct a complete and up-to-date data representation of the kind required for a model IR system.