Search queries and the use of different advanced search operators in a search engine

Abstract

Online searching is an activity that is present in the lives of many people, especially when it comes to routine searches to solve everyday problems. At the same time, the volume of data available on the web is growing daily, and filtering the results can determine the effectiveness of this search. Search engines also return other elements besides the results, composing a complex interface. This complexity can make it difficult to use and divert the user’s attention to these elements. Considering this, the present study sought to examine which characteristics in search results stand out from the use of advanced operators in searching for web documents. Assuming that the use of these operators can suggest greater agility in the search and greater precision to the results, the research identified characteristics presented along with the results of several searches. Through an experimental research approach, the results from 380 user screen captures were collected and analyzed. The users replicated a search on Google in five different scenarios: free search; normalized search; search with the Boolean operator AND and the addition of quotation marks; search with the filetype: operator; and search with the site: operator. The results highlighted features such as search ads, suggestions of searches already performed by other users, and approximate result counts. It is understood that the use of advanced search operators can not only affect the presented results but also their presentation format.

Keywords:
Search engines; Web search tools; Information retrieval; Boolean operators; Google