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The existence and continued growth of the invisible web creates a major challenge for search engines that are attempting to organize all of the material on the web into a form that is easily retrieved by all users. The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges and problems underlying existing work in this area.

A discussion based on a short survey of prior work, including automated discovery of invisible web site search interfaces, automated classification of invisible web sites, label assignment and form filling, information extraction from the resulting pages, learning the query language of the search interface, building content summary for an invisible web site, selecting proper databases, integrating invisible web‐search interfaces, and accessing the performance of an invisible web site.

Existing technologies and tools for indexing the invisible web follow one of two strategies: indexing the web site interface or examining a portion of the contents of an invisible web site and indexing the results.

The paper is of value to those involved with information management.

This paper aims to introduce a prototype system called SAFQuery (Simple And Flexible Query interface). In many existing Web search interfaces, simple and advanced query processes are treated separately that cannot be issued interchangeably. In addition, after several rounds of queries for specific information need(s), it is possible that users might wish to re-examine the retrieval results corresponding to some previous queries or to slightly modify some of the specific queries issued before. However, it is often hard to remember what queries have been issued. These factors make the current Web search process not very simple or flexible.

In SAFQuery, the simple and advanced query strategies are integrated into a single interface, which can easily formulate query specifications when needed in the same interface. Moreover, query history information is provided that displays the past query specifications, which can help with the memory load.

The authors' experiments by user evaluation show that most users had a positive experience when using SAFQuery. Specifically, it is easy to use and can simplify the Web search task.

The proposed prototype system provides simple and flexible Web search strategies. Particularly, it allows users to easily issue simple and advanced queries based on one single query interface, interchangeably. In addition, users can easily input previously issued queries without spending time to recall what the queries are and/or to re-type previous queries.

Clustering web search results into dynamic clusters and hierarchies provides a promising way to alleviate the overabundance of information typically found in ranked list search engines. This study seeks to investigate the usefulness of clustering textual results in web search by analysing the search performance and users' satisfaction levels with and without the aid of clusters and hierarchies.

This study utilises two evaluation metrics. One is a usability test of clustering interfaces measured by users' search performances; the other is a comprehension test measured by users' satisfaction levels. Various methods were used to support the two tests, including experiments, observations, questionnaires, interviews, and search log analysis.

The results showed that there was no significant difference between the ranked list and clustering interfaces, although participants searched slightly faster, retrieved a larger number of relevant pages, and were more satisfied when using the ranked list interface without clustering. Even so, the clustering interface offers opportunities for diversified searching. Moreover, the repetitive ratio of relevant results found by each participant was low. Other advantages of the clustering interface are that it highlights important concepts and offers richer contexts for exploring, learning and discovering related concepts; however, it may induce a certain amount of anxiety about missing or losing important information.

The evaluation of a clustering interface is rather difficult, particularly in the context of the web search environment, which is used by a large heterogeneous user population for a wide variety of tasks. The study employed multiple data collection methods and in particular designed a combination of usability and comprehension tests to offer preliminary results on users' evaluation of real‐world clustering search interfaces. The results may extend the understanding of search characteristics with a cluster‐based web search engine, and could be used as a vehicle for further discussion of user evaluation research into this area.

HotMap web search was designed to support exploratory search tasks by adding lightweight visual and interactive features to the commonly used list‐based representation of web search results. Although laboratory user studies are the most common method for empirically validating the utility of information visualization and information retrieval systems such as this, it is difficult to determine if such studies accurately reflect the tasks of real users. This paper aims to address these issues.

A longitudinal user evaluation was conducted in two phases over a ten‐week period to determine how this novel web search interface was being used and accepted in real‐world settings.

Although the interactive features were not used as extensively as expected, there is evidence that the participants did find them useful. Participants were able to refine their queries easily, although most did so manually. Those that used the interactive exploration features were able to effectively discover potentially relevant documents buried deep in the search results list. Subjective reactions regarding the usefulness and ease‐of‐use of the system were positive, and more than half of the participants continued to use the system even after the study ended.

As a result of conducting this longitudinal study, the author has gained a deeper understanding of how a particular visual and interactive web search interface is being used in the real world, as well as issues associated with resistance to change. These findings may provide guidance for the design, development, and study of next generation interfaces for online information retrieval.

Access to related information is a key requirement for exploratory search. The purpose of this research is to understand where related information may be found and how it may be explored by users.

Earlier research provides sufficient evidence that web graph neighborhoods of returned search results may contain documents related to users' intended search topic. However, in the literature, no interface mechanisms have been presented to enable exploration of these neighborhoods by users. Based on a modified web graph, this paper proposes tools and methods for displaying and exploring the graph neighborhood of any selected item in the search results list. Important issues that arise when implementing such an exploration model are discussed and utility of the proposed system is evaluated with user experiments.

In user experiments first, information related to intended search topic was often found in the web neighborhood of search results; second, exploring these graph neighborhoods with the proposed tools improved users' ability to reach the information they sought.

The test participants are computer science graduate students. Their skills may not be representative of the broad user population.

The lessons learned from this research point to a potentially fruitful direction for designing new search engine interfaces that support exploratory search.

This paper compares and contrasts online searching on DataStar, a major European host now owned by The Dialog Corporation, using the “Classic” command language, with access via the more recent Web interface. DataStar, established in 1981, was one of the first online hosts to offer a web interface, in December 1996. DataStar Web was upgraded in December 1997. “Classic” DataStar command line searching requires familiarity with commands, operators, database labels, etc. DataStar Web offers searching via apparently simple steps: eg. selecting a database, entering search terms. The functionality of the two interfaces is considered, looking in turn at entering the system, selecting a database, searching, output and display, terminating the search session, error messages and help pages, and support, training and documentation. The search functionality of the two interfaces is not identical, although both use the same retrieval software and access the same databases. Many of the differences affect retrieval effectiveness and may trip up novice and experienced searchers alike.

This study evaluated two different types of online information retrieval (IR) systems: online databases and Web search engines, in terms of user generated criteria. It also compares four types of Web search engines: directories, search engines, meta‐search engines, and specialized search engines. The results show that three elements are essential to users in the evaluation of online IR systems: interface design, system performance and collection coverage. While participants preferred the ease of use and intuitive interfaces of Web search engines, they also liked the credible and useful information offered by online databases. Based on the discussion of advantages and problems of online databases and Web search engines, implications of for the design of IR systems are further suggested.

COPAC is the new OPAC providing a unified interface to the consolidated database of the Consortium of University Research Libraries (CURL). This paper provides a brief overview of the background to CURL and the COPAC project, describing the main content of the COPAC database. Having multiple contributors to the database inevitably results in some record duplication. Deduplication and record consolidation are being carried out in the production of the COPAC database and the general procedures involved are described. COPAC is accessible via a Text interface and a Web interface. Each interface is discussed using example screens to illustrate the search process. Now that the initial COPAC service is in operation, further developments are taking place across several fronts and these are described briefly.

The Internet and related information services attract increasing interest from information retrieval researchers. A survey of recent publications show that frequent topics are the effectiveness of search engines, information validation and quality, user studies, design of user interfaces, data structures and metadata, classification and vocabulary based aids, and indexing and search agents. Current research in these areas is briefly discussed. The changing balance between CD‐ROM sources and traditional online searching is quite important and is noted.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a means to improve the accessibility of files across different delivery platforms, making it possible to use a single search modality. The paper shows that both peer‐to‐peer file sharing networks and the worldwide web provide extensive information resources, and either network may contain data that satisfy a searcher's information need.

The paper proposes a gateway between the worldwide web and peer‐to‐peer networks that permits searchers on one side to be able to seamlessly search and retrieve files on the other side of the gateway. The design and prototype implementation of such a gateway to Gnutella is detailed, along with access statistics from test deployments and lessons learned.

The prototype implementation was found to demonstrate the feasibility of a seamless gateway between the Gnutella network and the worldwide web. Gnutella users saw millions of web search results and initiated retrievals via the gateway without knowing the source of the information or having to leave their Gnutella applications. Analysis of file retrieval logs showed that Gnutella search results lose value (to the original searcher) if delayed by more than a few seconds.

The implementation is a prototype, fielded for only a few months within the Gnutella network. Future implementations need cooperation with a web search service, and ideally would connect to multiple services for different types of queries.

Deployment of the gateway architecture described would be of use to searchers and of value to content providers.

This paper's approach makes information in other networks seamlessly searchable and accessible.