Thank you for your interest in our Search Engine Evaluation Project!

In order to qualify, you will have to pass the short assessment below (5 to 10 minutes).

Please read the guidelines below and answer the following 8 questions.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

First Name *

Last Name *

Email address you used to sign-up * 🛈

Current country of residence *

State *

Language for which you signed up *

GUIDELINES

Please, read carefully the instructions

Query

A query is a search term entered by a user into a search engine. A query can be entered in many formats and will provide you with information to determine what the user is searching for. Keep in mind the following:

A query can be one word or a group of words. (e.g. “dogs”, “Best care rental Bellevue WA”)

A query can be acronyms such as WoW PvP (World of Warcraft Player versus Play)

If a query is a group of words, read the query as one entity, e.g. “Susan Jones” (name of a person), “Curtain call” (single entity), “Yellow Rose of Texas” (song title).

Note that some simple subject queries will have multiple interpretations (e.g. “apple”, “Harry Potter”, “black panther”). These queries lack specifics (qualifiers) that help to specify the meaning (there would have been no confusion if the queries had been “apple fruit”, “apple company”, “harry potter books”, “harry potter movies”, “black panther animal”, “black panther movie”).

Some queries include dates, and words like “official”, qualifiers of this nature should be taken into consideration.

Intent

Intent refers to what a user probably wants to see when they enter a query into a search engine. For example, the majority of users probably want to see information (official or gossip) about the movie star, this is considered Majority Intent. Another possible but less likely intent (minor intent) might be to identify movies associated with the actor. It is common for a query to have multiple user intents that are all reasonable. User intents are subject to personal interpretations and can hence vary from judge to judge.

Query	Region	Interpretation Examples
Sydney	US	- Major Intent: For the place in Australia - Minor Intent: For a non-celebrity named Sydney or a YouTube channel named Sydney
Cairns	US	- Major intent: The City in Australia - Minor intent: people named Cairns
Harry Potter	US	- Major Intent: For the books - Major intent: For the movies (although based on web search, this may look slightly less important, but for video, the movie intent is equally important)
Ultra Australia	Australia	Major intent: the electronic music festival Ultra Australia Minor intent: Ultratune – the automotive servicing shop
Sherlock	US, UK	- Major intent: The TV show Sherlock (feat. Benedict Cumberbatch) - Minor intent: Sherlock Holmes the character by writer Arthur Conan Doyle - Minor intent: Sherlock Holmes as portrayed in movies, and the movie franchise Sherlock Holmes

Serp

“Serp” stands for “Search Engine Results Page” and refers to the list of search results on the first page of the search engine – usually the top ten results. View the Search engine result page to determine if one result is predominant or if there is possibly more than one meaning.

Caption, title, snippet, URL

The caption is the totality of the information of a single search result. The simplest captions consist of Title, URL and Snippet.

Landing page (LP)/document

These terms are often used interchangeably. They refer to the page that opens upon clicking a link or opening a URL. Any page that is opened by clicking on a link within the LP is no longer considered part of the LP.

QUESTIONS

Please answer to the following questions. Passing score: 7/8

1. Will a query provide you with information to determine what the user is looking for? *

Yes

No

2. Can a Query be an acronym? *

Yes

No

3. Should words like “official” be taken into consideration when included in a query? *

Yes

No

4. Should every query be entered into a search engine? *

Yes

No

5. Do we allow for ambiguities? *

Yes

No

6. Is majority intent determined by how many times the same type of result is shown on the search engine result page? *

Yes

No

7. Is it true that a Simple caption may consist of Title, URL and Snippet? *

Yes

No

8. Is a page that opens by clicking a link within the LP considered part of the LP? *

Yes

No