Comparative study of metasearch engines performance in retrieving Library and information Science documents on the web

Abstract

Internet searching tools, Search engines and Metasearch engines are among. Metasearch engines do not have their own databases. They send user’s queries simultaneously to multiple web Search engines and/or web Directories. Some of researchers and compaines that conduct the Metasearch engines, believe that these tools retrieve more relevant hits. This research was conducted to determine this idea in searching and retrieving Library and information science documents. 12 major Metaseach engins that introduced in www.searchengine watch.com at September 11, 2000 were selected. On the other hand, keywords of articles titles which selected were published in library and information science periodicals during one year (1378 = march 21, 1999 – march 20, 2000). Keywords were classified acording to LISA classification of library and information science subjects. Then, these keywords were searched in 12 Metasearch engines. The 10 first records were considered to be evaluated. The results showed that inspite of using the best Metaseach engines, Just approximately %30 of sources are relevant. Also results indicate that C4 Metasearch engine in comparison with others, retrieves more sources in various subjects, but more relevant sources retrieve form C/ Net Metasearch engine.