A Metasearch Engine That Learns Which Search Engines to Query

Search engines are among the most successful applications on the web today. So many search engines have been created that it is difficult for users to know where they are, how to use them, and what topics they best address. Metasearch engines reduce the user burden by dispatching queries to multiple search engines in parallel. Not too surprisingly then, the most successful applications on the web to date are search engines: tools that assist users in finding information on specific topics. The first decision requires reasoning about the available resources and the second about ranking the search engines.