Search services: HotBot

Header

General information

• Type of service (according to TK's typology): Robot based index
• Access:(free, commercial): Free
• Volume:
• URLs known: 50 000 000
• Number of documents indexed: 36 000 000
• Publisher: Hot Wired -magazine and Inktomi search engine
• URL for Top-level Page: http://www.hotbot.com/
• Mirror sites: No
• URL for the organization: http://www.hotwired.com/ and http://www.inktomi.com/
• History: New search engine, now in beta-testing
• Update frequency of the whole database: Once a week (7 000 000 pages per day)
• Document rating, reviews, "added value" included: No
• Registration needed: No
• Costs: No
• Performance:
• Response time: Fast
• Time outs: No
• Image download time: Not so fast - heavy graphics

Harvesting

• Harvesting software: Inktomi robot
• Robot (type; follows robot exclusion standard?): Yes
• Method:
• Human:
• Automatic: Yes
• User registration: Yes
• User deletable: No
• Depth first:
• Breadth first:
• Type coverage:
• WWW: Yes
• gopher:
• WAIS:
• ftp:
• telnet (OPACs):
• UseNet News: In the near future
• Listserv:
• IRC:
• Other databases (numeric, commercial):
• Multimedia products (images, movie, sounds): java applets, netscape plug-inns
• Other types:
• Geographic coverage:
• Subject coverage (General or specialized content): General
• Update frequency for visiting the same sites/documents again: Once a week
• Number of dead links:

Indexing

• Indexing software:
• What is indexed:
• Extracted information, fields indexed:
• Titles:
• Headings:
• Header information (included metainformation): META -tag incomming
• File information (size, date): Yes
• Links (URLs):
• The anchor text of links:
• Other HTML tags:
• Summary/excerpts (how generated):
• Full text: Yes
• What is not indexed:
• Separate metainformation provided by the search service:
• Human cataloguing and indexing: No
• Human summary/abstract, excerpt, review: No

Retrieval system:

• Boolean (exact match):
• Best match:
• Combination: Yes
• Vector retrieval:
• nonverbal (citation indexing):
• Other:

• Natural language:
• Word list (no Boolean operators associated): Yes
• Boolean query: Yes (not expressed in standard syntax)
Boolean operators:
AND: Yes - all of these words
OR: Yes - any of these words
NOT: Yes - shoudn't contain the words
Nesting (parentheses supported): No
Restrictions:
mixing of operators: Possible in Modify-search option
number of search keys: Not limited
• Proximity operators:
1. distance in number of words:
2. distance in text structure: Limit the search to URL
3. bound phrases: Yes (quatationmarks or pull-down menu)
• Other:
• Ranking algorithm:
• ranking factors: TITLE emphasised, frequency of words
• calculation of scores:
• User weighted words: No


Search terms:

• Truncation:
• Not supported: No
• Automatic:
1. stemming algorithm (morfological):
2. add wildcard (mechanical):
3. left (mechanical):
4. right (mechanical):
• Manual
• left:
• right:
• internal:
• What is the default and is it user changeable?:
• String match features: No
1. regular expressions:
2. internal masking:
3. case sensitive specify:
4. others:
• Any limits for a search term (character sets supported):Searches and displays Latin-1.
• Any limits for the size of a result set: No

• Possibility to specify source types: Possible to specify "media types" within WWW pages (Java, JavaScript, Audio, Acrobat, Shockwave, VRML, Smiley(?))
• System searches as default:
• URL:
• Title, headings:
• Keywords:
• Summary:
• Fulltext: Yes
• cited URL, anchor text:
• others:
• User selectable search fields:
• URL: Yes
• Title, headings:
• keywords:
• Summary:
• Fulltext:
• cited URL, anchor text:
• others: Personal name = proximity (not bound phrase)
• Other search options:
• Stopword list
• Uses the system a stopword list?:
• How is the stopword list constructed? (e.g. words exceeding a given absolut frequency are automatically put into the stopword list): Yes
• Can the stopword list be sidestepped in a search? (e.g. in a phrase search): No, HotBot recommends to avoid too common words in phrases

• Concept search: No
• Query expansion: No
• Controlled Vocabulary, thesauri: No
• Relevance feedback, find similar:
• Improve your search support or form: Yes (Revise search form displayes standard search interface with entered search keys)
• Navigation and graphical features: Outlook is quite fuzzy, postmodern
• Other features: Scalable, results shown in differnet window

• Result set information:
total: Yes
subsets: No
• Possible to choose number of displayed hits?: Yes (10,25,50,100)
• Is the number of hits displayed limited by the service?: No
• What can be displayed:
• URL: Yes
• Hotlink to original document: Yes
• Title, headings: Yes (title)
• Keywords: No
• Summary: Excerpt
• Fulltext: Yes (original document in a new window)
• cited URL, anchor text: No
• Show hits in context: No
• Highlight hits: No
• document size: Yes
• document last updated: No
• document last visited: Yes
• Pre-defined display formats: No
• Other display options: Original documents can be displayed in new window

• Information about relevance scores:
Score displayed?: Yes (%)
Matching terms:
• Sorting:
URL-based:
others (size, number of links): Relevance based
• Afterprocessing of the result by the service:
duplicate check: No (incoming)
link check: No
• Other display options:
• Browsing structure (Subject catalogue), Organization of the result: No
• Browsing structure integrated with index?: No

User interface

• General description of interface: Query field, pull-down menus to choose operators. Three level interface: simple, modify, expert
• Clarity of interface: Not so clear, postmodern
• Clarity of search page or index: Not so clear
• Text-Only support:Yes
• HTML Forms support: Yes
• URL for Forms Search Page: http://www.hotbot.com/index.html
• Query input form:
• Optional forms for input:
• simple but limited: Yes
• structured: Yes (Modify and Expert -search interfaces)
• free not limited:
• other supported:

 

 

• Non-Forms support: No
• URL for Non-Forms Search Page:
• Adaptations to special browsers (Netscape, lynx): Adopts to clients browser (Netscape Navigator (versions 1.2 to 2.0), Microsoft Internet Explorer (versions 1.5 to 2.0), Lynx (version 2-4-2 or later), America Online browser, Oracle Power Browser and Netcom NetCruiser are supported)
• Online Help?: No
• URL for FAQ Page: http://www.hotbot.com/faq.html
• URL for Help Page: http://www.hotwired.com/help/hotbot/f-help.html
• Navigation Aids: Good
• Search Tutorials: No
• Sample Searches: No
• Server Load Indicators: No
• What's New page: No
• What's Popular page: No

Documentation

• Manual:
• Literature:
• Reviews:

Our evaluation of the service

 Last update: 96-09-03