A capture–recapture sampling standardization for improving Internet meta-search

This work describes a novel sampling standardization for improving precision of third-party results in web meta-search. The standardization uses the capture–recapture methodology which is mainly applied for estimating evolution rates in wildlife biological studies, as well as a mechanism that records the users' browsing behavior during their web search sessions. The paper provides the implementation details and the initial assessment of a third-party results ranking algorithm which employs both mechanisms. It is proved that an important quality factor in providing relevant information is how frequent Internet search services refresh their databases. It is also proved that when users' browsing behavior is jointly examined with the ability of the Internet search services to offer new and fresh results, a more effective meta-search is provided. Experimental results have shown that the precision levels of third-party results were significantly increased in several recall levels, over a six-month period. For acquiring third-party results we used five known web search services namely, AltaVista, Google, Lycos, MSN, and Yahoo!