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

• Front Matter
• The Context of Web Search
  Technological, Social and Organizational Context
• Human Information Behavior and Human Computer Interaction Context
• Research Design
• How People Search the Web
  Search Terms
• Search Queries
• Search Sessions
• Subjects of Web Search
  E-Commerce Web Searching
• Medical and Health Web Searching
• Sexually-Related Web Searching
• Multimedia Searching
• Conclusion
  Key Findings, Trends, Further Research and Conclusions
• Back Matter

University of Pittsburgh, USA
Amanda Spink

The Pennsylvania State University, USA
Bernhard J. Jansen

Book Title
Web Search: Public Searching of the Web

Editors
Amanda Spink, Bernhard J. Jansen

Series Title
Information Science and Knowledge Management

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2269-7

Hardcover ISBN
978-1-4020-2268-5
Published: 21 July 2004

Softcover ISBN
978-90-481-6629-9
Published: 28 October 2010

eBook ISBN
978-1-4020-2269-2
Published: 21 February 2006

Series ISSN
1568-1300

Edition Number
1

Number of Pages
XIII, 199

Topics
Computer Science, general, The Computing Profession, User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence