How can I test a search engine's effectiveness?

Reply

Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 4
Reputation: TGMaverick is an unknown quantity at this point 
Solved Threads: 0
TGMaverick TGMaverick is offline Offline
Newbie Poster

How can I test a search engine's effectiveness?

 
0
  #1
Dec 16th, 2008
Hi all,

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this question but here goes:

I want to find out which search engines are most effective for users in terms of usability, and quality of results.

I am going to be using eye-tracking tools to monitor users when they are using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and a meta-search engine (maybe Dogpile.com).

Do you have any suggestions on how I could formulate tests? I am thinking about creating a set of tasks asking a user to go on search engines and find a relevant website through searches that best match the answer they have in front of them. (I.e. If I want a user to find typical strength of Paracetamol, who can take it, side effects etc that is on a paper - against - what they find on the net, that backs up the accurate information). A test like this would combine the quality of results given, against time take for a user to find the answer from results.

Any help on formulating tests for different types of search engines? Crawlers, Directories etc?

If anyone can help it would be great.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message  
Reply

This thread is more than three months old.
Perhaps start a new thread instead?
Message:



Other Threads in the IT Professionals' Lounge Forum
Thread Tools Search this Thread



About Us | Contact Us | Advertise | DaniWeb | Acceptable Use Policy | RSS Feed

©2003 - 2009 DaniWeb® LLC