Searching for Arbitrary Information in the WWW the FishSearch for Mosaic.pdf

Searching for Arbitrary Information in the WWW: the Fish−Search for Mosaic dr. P.M.E. De Bra, debra@win.tue.nl drs. R.D.J. Post, reinpost@win.tue.nl Abstract While the World−Wide Web (WWW, or Web for short) offers an incredibly rich base of information, organized as a hypertext, it does not provide a uniform and efficient way to retrieve specific information, based on user−defined search−criteria. Two types of search tools have been developed for the WWW: Gateways, offering (limited) search operations on small or large parts of the WWW, using a pre−compiled database. These databases are often built by an automated Web scanner (a robot). A client−based search tool that does automated navigation, thereby working more or less like a browsing user, but much faster and following an optimized strategy. This paper highlights the properties, implementation and possible future developments of a client−based search tool called thefish−search , and compares it to other approaches. The fish−search, implemented on top of Mosaic for X, offers an open−ended selection of search criteria. It allows the search to start from the current document or from the documents in the user’s hotlist. The future of client−based searching will depend heavily on assistance from WWW servers. The fish−search algorithm is currently being used to search by navigating through individual WWW documents. Substantial speedup and reduction of network resource consumption will become possible when the same search algorithm is converted to navigate through a Web of servers instead of a Web of documents. In order to implement such a search algorithm, WWW servers need to offer a service similar to that provided by GlimpseHTTP. 1. Introduction The World−Wide Web (WWW) is a loosely organized distributed information base, shared by a rapidly growing number of Internet sites. Becoming a node in this (distributed) database is easy because reliable and rea