A Monte-Carlo simulation application for automatic new topic identification of search engine transaction logs

One of the most important dimensions of Web user information seeking behavior and search engine research is content-based behavior, and limited research has focused on content-based behavior of search engine users. The purpose of this study is to perform automatic new topic identification in search engine transaction logs using Monte-Carlo simulation. Sample data logs from FAST and Excite are used in the study. Findings show that Monte-Carlo simulation for new topic identification yields satisfactory results in terms of identifying topic continuations; however, the performance measures regarding topic shifts should be improved.