Finding information on the Internet is a three-step process:
- finding documents: the Internet consists of millions of computers,
each containing many documents;
it may be difficult to get access to all potentially interesting documents.
- formulating queries: the user needs to express exactly what kind of
information she is looking for.
- determining relevance: the system must determine whether a
document contains the information the user is looking for.
Traditional information retrieval research and development has concentrated
on the second and third step. The distributed nature of the Internet
requires shifting the focus towards the first step.
