Impact of search results on user queries.

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we experimentally study how web searchers select the keywords to describe their information needs and specifically we investigate whether query keyword selections are influenced by the results the users reviewed for a previous search. For our study, we determine two types of searches: (i) those in which users define their queries without any external influence and which we call tightly-focused and (ii) those in which users define their queries under some external influence and which we call loosely-focused. Based on the analysis of the user querying trends and web visits on the query results, we propose a model that tries to capture the results' influence on the specification of the subsequent user queries. The application of our model on a search trace of 19,250 queries issued to Google by 18 users over a period of two months reveals that in overall search results influence the specification of 12.79% of the web queries.