Improving Domain Searches through Customized Search Engines

Search engines are ubiquitous tools for seeking information from the Internet and, as such, have become an integral part of our information society. New search engines that combine ideas from separate search engines generally outperform the search engines from which they took ideas. Designers, however, may not be aware of the work of other search engine developers or such work may not be available in modules that can be incorporated into another search engine. This research presents an interoperability architecture for building customized search engines. Existing search engines are analyzed and decomposed into self-contained components that are classified into six categories. A prototype, called the Automated Software Development Environment for Information Retrieval, was developed to implement the interoperability architecture, and an assessment of its feasibility was carried out. The prototype resolves conflicts between components of separate search engines and demonstrates how design features across search engines can be integrated.