The quality of search results is usually characterized by three factors: precision, recall, ad relevance.
Precise search results contain the fewest possible incorrect matches. If you search for “gravy,” you shouldn’t be getting documents about “gravity.”
Recall refers to the completeness of the search results. Complete search results include as many appropriate matches as possible, without missing anything that might be related. If you search for “dog,” you shouldn’t just find out about pets, you also want to find “Dog Star.”
“Three Dog night,” “Reservoir Dogs,” and references to someone’s chili tasting like dog food. Complete results should show every match, no matter how obscure.
Relevant search results put the best possible matches at the top of the search results. Relevance means that the result gives you information that is actually useful to your purpose as a searcher.
In general, this is at best an educated guess. If you’re looking for “dog,” then a page called “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Dogs” is much more likely to be relevant than a page about bad chili.
When you’ve got your search engine working, you’ll want to test it and make sure it gives the kinds of results you would hope for. Test the search engine results, especially for the mot common queries, and verify that the results returned make sense. If not, fix the search engine.
When you test the search results, check that the results are precise, comprehensive, and relevant. Check that the presentation of results is comprehensible.
Keep a log of search queries that users enter, especially those that return to matches. Often this will indicate information that is missing from your system, or synonyms or keywords you need to add to your search engine.
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