Searching or Web Searching
A web search query is a query that a user enters into web search engine to satisfy his or her information needs. Web search queries are distinctive in that they are unstructured and often ambiguous; they vary greatly from standard query languages which are governed by strict syntax rules.
Types of Searching
There are three broad categories that cover most web search queries:
1) Informational Queries: Queries that cover a broad topic (e.g., colorado or trucks) for which there may be thousands of relevant results.
2) Navigational Queries: Queries that seek a single website or web page of a single entity (e.g., youtube or delta airlines).
3) Transactional Queries: Queries that reflect the intent of the user to perform a particular action, like purchasing a car or downloading a screen saver.
Search engines often support a fourth type of query that is used far less frequently:
4) Connectivity Queries: Queries that report on the connectivity of the indexed web graph (e.g., Which links point to this URL? and How many pages are indexed from this domain name?).
