Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-188).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-189).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ball State University, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Apr. 16, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 54-63).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Computer Science and Engineering. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-189). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR38770

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / In the past decade, there has been an increasing need for semantic-aware data search and indexing in textual (structured and NoSQL) databases, as full-text search systems became available to non-experts where users have no knowledge about the data being searched and often formulate query keywords which are different from those used by the authors in indexing relevant documents, thus producing noisy and sometimes irrelevant results. In this paper, we address the problem of semantic-aware querying and provide a general framework for modeling and processing semantic-based keyword queries in textual databases, i.e., considering the lexical and semantic similarities/disparities when matching user query and data index terms. To do so, we design and construct a semantic-aware inverted index structure called SemIndex, extending the standard inverted index by constructing a tightly coupled inverted index graph that combines two main resources: a semantic network and a standard inverted index on a collection of textual data. We then provide a general keyword query model with specially tailored query processing algorithms built on top of SemIndex, in order to produce semantic-aware results, allowing the user to choose the results' semantic coverage and expressiveness based on her needs. To investigate the practicality and effectiveness of SemIndex, we discuss its physical design within a standard commercial RDBMS allowing to create, store, and query its graph structure, thus enabling the system to easily scale up and handle large volumes of data. We have conducted a battery of experiments to test the performance of SemIndex, evaluating its construction time, storage size, query processing time, and result quality, in comparison with legacy inverted index. Results highlight both the effectiveness and scalability of our approach. / This study is partly funded by the National Council for Scientific Research - Lebanon (CNRS-L), by the Lebanese American University (LAU), and the Research Support Foundation of the State of Sao Paulo ( FAPESP ). Appendix SemIndex Weighting Scheme We propose a set of weighting functions to assign weight scores to SemIndex entries, including: index nodes , index edges, data nodes , and data edges . The weighting functions are used to select and rank semantically relevant results w.r.t. the user's query (cf. SemIndex query processing in Section 5). Other weight functions could be later added to cater to the index designer's needs. / Revisión por pares

THESIS Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree MAGISTER TECHNOLOGIAE in INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY in the FACULTY OF BUSINESS INFORMATICS at the CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 2005 / The aim of this research was to determine how search engine exclusion policies and spam affect the indexing of e-Commerce websites. The Internet has brought along new ways of doing business. The unexpected growth of the World Wide Web made it essential for firms to adopt e-commerce as a means of obtaining a competitive edge. The introduction of e-commerce in turn facilitated the breaking down of physical barriers that were evident in traditional business operations. It is important for e-commerce websites to attract visitors, otherwise the website content is irrelevant. Websites can be accessed through the use of search engines, and it is estimated that 88% of users start with search engines when completing tasks on the web. This has resulted in web designers aiming to have their websites appear in the top ten search engine result list, as a high placement of websites in search engines is one of the strongest contributors to a commercial website’s success. To achieve such high rankings, web designers often adopt Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices. Some of these practices invariably culminate in undeserving websites achieving top rankings. It is not clear how these SEO practices are viewed by search engines, as some practices that are deemed unacceptable by certain search engines are accepted by others. Furthermore, there are no clear standards for assessing what is considered good or bad SEO practices. This confuses web designers in determining what is spam, resulting in the amount of search engine spam having increased over time, impacting adversely on search engine results. From the literature reviewed in this thesis, as well as the policies of five top search engines (Google, Yahoo!, AskJeeves, AltaVista, and Ananzi), this author was able to compile a list of what is generally considered as spam. Furthermore, 47 e-commerce websites were analysed to determine if they contain any form of spam. The five major search engines indexed some of these websites. This enabled the author to determine to what extent search engines adhere to their policies. This analysis returned two major findings. A small amount of websites contained spam, and from the pre-compiled list of spam tactics, only two were identified in the websites, namely keyword stuffing and page redirects. Of the total number of websites analysed, it was found that 21.3% of the websites contained spam. From these findings, the research contained in this thesis concluded that search engines adhere to their own policies, but lack stringent controls for the majority of websites that contained spam, and were still listed by search engines. In this study, the author only analysed e-commerce websites, and cannot therefore generalise the results to other websites outside ecommerce.

Thesis (DTech (Information Technology))Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011 / It was concluded in the literature review that small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMME) should prioritise utilising the websites on the Internet, as it provides a low cost infrastructure, unlocking opportunities and allowing small- to medium-sized enterprises to market to the international customer, promoting business activities in a low-risk environment. However, visitors do not know that they do not know, meaning a need for facilitation exists between the Internet user in terms of the information required and the information available on the Internet. Search engines (governed by their organic ranking algorithms) were created for this very purpose, to facilitate users in finding relevant information on the Internet in the shortest time possible. Search engines interpret and evaluate any given indexed web page from a targeted keywords perspective, indicating that web pages must be optimised from a search engine perspective. However, the elements search engines perceive to be important may not always be aligned with what website visitors perceive to be important. Anything on the web page that may remotely impede the visitors’ experience could be detrimental as alternative website options are but a click away. An example would be the excessive use of content on a given web page. The search engine may find the excessive content useful as it may provide contextual interpretation of the web page. However, the excessive content may impede a visitor’s website interaction as it is estimated that the average visitors will often view a web page for 45-60 seconds and read a maximum of 200 words only. During the process of identifying the contradictory search engine optimisation (SEO) elements and website usability (WU) attributes, three journal articles were written, with two journal articles following their own research methodologies and the third journal article utilising all the research results in order to create the fused SEO and WU model. Journal Article 1: Two websites were used as part of the experiment: • Control Website (CW): http://www.copywriters.co.za • Experimental Website (EW): http://www.copywriters.co.za/ppc/. The CW is an existing website with no special emphasis applied to SEO and/or WU. The EW was developed by implementing the WU attributes and ignoring all contradictory SEO elements. In order to ensure integrity of the experiment, search engines were denied access to the EW. The traffic sources for the CW were search engines (organic) traffic, as well as direct and referrer traffic.

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