Search Performance and User Interaction Monitoring of Search Engines

• US 20070265999A1
• Filed: 05/15/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kraus, Naama, Lempel, Ronny, Amitay, Einat, Soffer, Aya, Petruschka, Yael
• Application Number:
  US11/383,265
• Publication Number:
  US 20070265999A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

A system for monitoring search performance and user interaction is provided in the form of a utility (300) including a plurality of monitoring components (302), each for dynamic monitoring of an aspect of searching a collection of documents. An analyzer module (303) analyzes the dynamic monitoring and identifies problems or difficulties in the search performance or user interactions. An output (301), which may be in the form of a display interface, provides information regarding the search performance and user interaction including one or more of: reasoning, improvement suggestions, reports, and problem alerts. The analyzer module (302) compares the dynamic monitoring to benchmark search engine conduct and document collection state.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring search performance and user interaction, comprising:

a plurality of monitoring components, each for dynamic monitoring of an aspect of searching a collection of documents;

an analyzer module for analyzing the dynamic monitoring and identifying problems or difficulties in the search performance or user interaction; and

an output providing information regarding the search performance and user interaction.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein output provides one or more of:

reasoning, improvement suggestions, reports, problem alerts, graphical representation, query trend analysis, content availability indication, search engine performance level, direct link recommendations.

3. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the analyzer module compares the dynamic monitoring to benchmark search engine conduct and document collection state.

4. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the analyzer module carries out trend analysis of search queries, taxonomies, or searchable content.

5. A system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the trend analysis maps search terms onto a taxonomy.

6. A system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the trend analysis provides a temporal plot of content derived from search queries.

7. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the analyzer module of the system includes one or more of:

recent item tracker, significant item tracker, global events queue, query clustering component, query difficulty predictor, content estimator, query reformulation session detector.

8. A system as claimed in claim 1, including a display interface presenting aspects of the output to a user and including user interrogation means.

9. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system monitors an enterprise search system.

10. A search system comprising:

a search application;

a search engine;

a searchable collection;

a system for monitoring search performance and user interaction as claimed in claim 1.

11. A search system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the system for monitoring search performance and user interaction is local to the search application.

12. A search system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the system for monitoring search performance and user interaction is remote from the search application and receives inputs from one or more search applications, and the search engine.

13. A search system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the system includes an application programming interface (API) for inputting data into the system from one or more of:

a search application and a search engine.

14. A search system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the API outputs data to one or more of a search application, a search engine, a graphical user interface (GUI), and a search administration application.

15. A search system as claimed in claim 12, wherein the system includes remote access capability and control.

16. A method for monitoring search performance and user interaction, comprising:

dynamic monitoring of a plurality of aspects of searching a collection of documents;

analyzing the dynamic monitoring and identifying problems or difficulties in the search performance or user interactions; and

providing information regarding the search performance and user interaction.

17. A method as claimed in claim 16, wherein the step of providing information provides one or more of:

reasoning, improvement suggestions, reports, problem alerts, graphical representation, query trend analysis, content availability indication, search engine performance level, direct link recommendations.

18. A method as claimed in claim 16, wherein the step of monitoring includes measures of one or more of:

quality of search results, ease of use, result confidence level, failed queries, missing content, response time, impact of changes to a search engine or collection content.

19. A computer program product stored on a computer readable storage medium, comprising computer readable program code means for performing the steps of:

dynamic monitoring of a plurality of aspects of searching a collection of documents;

analyzing the dynamic monitoring and identifying problems or difficulties in the search performance or user interactions; and

providing information regarding the search performance and user interaction.

20. A method of providing a service to a customer over a network for monitoring search performance and user interaction, the service comprising:

dynamic monitoring of a plurality of aspects of searching a collection of documents;

analyzing the dynamic monitoring and identifying problems or difficulties in the search performance or user interactions; and

providing information regarding the search performance and user interaction.