NetInsert - building the semantic web
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NetInsert is best described as a semantic web engine. A semantic web engine enables web site authors to convey the semantic meaning of the web site in the form of a subject category in a taxonomy. For example, where a top down search algorihtm may have a problem understanding if the word "Jaguar" refers to the Animal or to the Car, a web site author can clarify this ambiguity by defining the topic of the page to be "Animals » Cats » Jaguar" using a netinsert tag.
- The semantic web challenge and how NetInsert is part of the solution
- How can search engines leverage a web taxonomy?
- Requirements on a semantic web taxonomy
The semantic web challenge and how NetInsert is part of the solution
An example of the challenge a search engine faces is given below. The author wants to share his concern for the endangered Jaguar cat. The search engine however interprets the content as being mostly a good match for the Jaguar car. This can happen depending on the type of wording and key words used on the page. The search results for content on the web page consequently ranks higher for searches related to the Jaguar car. The real meaning of the page (the endangered cat Jaguar] has a low rank and is hard to find for users searching for that topic.
The challenge for Internet search is to bridge the gap between the author and the reader which is created by algorithmic machines when providing search results. This is the semantic web challenge.
The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. The term was coined by Tim Berners-Lee. He defines the Semantic Web as "a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines."
The web today is designed for human reading and lacks semantic capabilities in the form of a shared vocabulary and taxonomy. The lack of semantics is the one of the key reasons for the NetInsert initiative. NetInsert provides the web with a taxonomy which authors can use to convey the semantic meaning in a bottom up approach.
NetInsert enables web site authors to convey the semantic meaning of the web site by using a tag which refers to a subject or topic in a taxonomy. The Netinsert tag combined with algorithmic top down semantic analysis can be used to improve search results.
How can search engines leverage a web taxonomy?
By using a web taxonomy it is possible to augment the search index with new associations between a topic in taxonomy and the keywords on the page. These associations can be used to improve search results.
Using a web taxonomy also makes it possible to adaptively learn which topics that best correlate to a key word. This is shown in the histogram below of the incidence or count of web sites using a specific key word viewed over the set of topics in the taxonomy. If clusters of web sites occur in the topic space for a specific key word it is an indication of the key word being more closely related to those topics. This correlation can be used to better understand the semantic meaning of a web page and to improve search results.
Requirements on a semantic web taxonomy
A semantic taxonomy for the web must fulfill a number of requirements:
- Open (free for use by both web authors and search engines)
- Flexible (terms change both in name and meaning over time)
- Expandable (new terms and sub terms emerge constantly)
- User driven (must be able to grow automatically by user demand)
- Global and localized (must support both global and regional content)
- Multi language (must be supported for multiple languages)
NetInsert supports all of these requirements and provides unique and proven capability for building the semantic web.