Search Computing: Addressing Complex Search on the Web

Web search is considered a playground for a few giants-such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing-that relegate the other players to market niches. However, Web search is far from satisfying all information needs, because many search queries are complex, require information integration, and go beyond what can be offered by a single Web page; on these queries, generalized search engines do not perform well enough. This paper addresses a new paradigm for search driven data integration, called Search Computing, based on combining data extraction from distinct sources and data integration by means of specialized integration engines. The Search Computing project has the ambitious goal of lowering the technological barrier required for building complex search applications, thereby enabling the development of many new applications which will cover relevant search needs.