Three Web search engines, namely, Alta Vista, Excite, and Lycos, were compared and evaluated in terms of their search capabilities (e.g., Boolean logic, truncation, field search, word and phrase search) and retrieval performances (i.e., precision and response time) using sample queries drawn from real reference questions. Recall, the other evaluation criterion of information retrieval, is deliberately omitted from this study because it is impossible to assume how many relevant items there are for a particular query in the huge and ever changing Web system. The authors of this study found that Alta Vista outperformed Excite and Lycos in both search facilities and retrieval performance although Lycos had the largest coverage of Web resources among the three Web search engines examined. As a result of this research, we also proposed a methodology for evaluating other Web search engines not included in the current study.
Sin duda alguna, el honor de haber propuesto el primer método de evaluación de los sistemas de recuperación de información en la web le corresponde a Heiting Chu y Marilyn Rosenthal, quienes en el año 1996 (prácticamente en el inicio del desarrollo de los buscadores web) publicaron el trabajo ‘Search Engines for the World Wide Web: A Comparative Study and Evaluation Methodology‘ con motivo de la conferencia ASIS’96.
