Image Retrieval: A Comparative Analysis of Leading Search Engines

The World Wide Web has grown amazingly in the last two decades. Abundant information is available on the web and people regularly search the web to gather relevant information. Search engines play an important role in making users search the contents online using textual queries and other features to suite their requirements. Search engines now provide various added services too. This work presents critical evaluation of five popular search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask and Bing based on added features along with end-user experiences recorded during a survey. Images of thirty ambiguous words are retrieved from these search engines and analyzed and compared on the basis of their features, behaviour, functionalities, time taken, number of results and their versatility. The outcome of this study indicates the search engine(s) that provide good image results for ambiguous queries and the ones that provide the most features. We also put these search engines to various statistical comparisons including statistical tests to prove the hypothesis considered for this study. The results are elaborated using graphical interpretations.

Autorentext

Maninder Kaur received degrees in MCA, M.Phil. and PhD. She was working as Asst. Prof. in PCTE Ludhiana. Her areas of interest are search engine evaluation, fuzzy logic and microprocessors. She has authored three books on microprocessors and one on computer architecture. She has published four research papers in international and national journals.