Powerful searching with Google : a comparing study of the retrieval performance between basic and advanced search

The purpose with this essay is to evaluate the retrieval performance between Googles basic search and the advanced search functions. A secondary purpose is to evaluate the differences between the binary relevance scale and a 4- point scale. The basic search is defined as a search with two terms combined with the Boolean operator AND. The advanced search is based on search functions that are adequate to compare to the basic search. They are categorized as AND-searches, OR-searches, AND and OR-searches, exact phrase, and depending on where the terms occur on the page. The search strategies have been tested with twenty specific topics from a test data base. The measures used are two different types of precision, taking consideration both to total points and ranking efficiency. The results show small differences in retrieval performance between the strategies, both in total points and ranking efficiency. Even if the search functions showed some variation in performance compared to the basic search, the difference was never higher than 25 %, except for the AND-searches. The results show little differences also between the strategies with the binary relevance scale. The essay gives a indication that its possible to retrieve high efficiency in narrow topics with a few search terms. Therefore, it seems only necessary to use the advanced search functions in particular cases, such as searching for a specific quote.Uppsatsnivå: