Glossary

Glossary

Semantic terms explained

A

A/B Testing

Originally used as a concept in the advertising industry. A test method to optimize an existing system. Next to the live system part of the user traffic is randomly redirected to a second system, which differs from the first system in one specific feature. A/B testing may be used to test two different search engines on otherwise identical websites.

B

Boolean Query

A combination of words which are connected by Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) for example "taxonomy NOT biology". See also Query.

C

Categorization

Often the term categorization is treated as a synonym to classification. If one wants to distinguish between them, then categorization would refer to filing documents within a flexible, context-dependent structure, where every document may sit in more than one category as for example in taxonomy facets which may be used to refine search results. Classification refers rather to filing documents in a rigid, context-independent structure as in website navigation or in a physical library filing system, where pages and books may only be associated with one specific place in the structure.

Controlled Vocabulary

A controlled vocabulary is a vocabulary which is maintained according to certain principles (defined in guidelines) and used to categorize content or for query expansion. Controlled vocabularies use canonical terms for each concept and differ in types of relationships with which terms are linked. Examples of controlled vocabularies are taxonomies or thesauri.

Conversion Rate

In order to optimize the site search of an e-commerce platform statistics on the conversion rate of products are important. The conversion rate measures the number of product orders (often based on shopping basket not real orders) with respect to the number of search queries of a certain search term.

Q

Query

A query is a request that a user sends to a system to transmit his or her information need.