{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,20]],"date-time":"2025-10-20T16:52:53Z","timestamp":1760979173871,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":8,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2003,12,1]],"date-time":"2003-12-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1070236800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2003,12,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Recent studies show that many Web users only submit short queries and conduct short search sessions. This paper examines aspects of users\u2019 attempting longer more complex queries. Web search services such as Ask Jeeves \u2013 publicly accessible question and answer (Q&amp;A) search engines \u2013 encourage queries in question or request format. In light of this trend, this study examines whether general Web queries are shifting towards a more question\/request format. Previous studies show that some users were submitting question or request format queries to general non\u2010Q&amp;A Web search engines. This paper re\u2010examines this issue by analysing large\u2010scale Web query data from two different (US and European) Web query data sets, including 1.2 million Excite queries (<jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\" ext-link-type=\"uri\" xlink:href=\"http:\/\/www.excite.com\">www.excite.com<\/jats:ext-link>) and 1.2 million AlltheWeb.com (<jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\" ext-link-type=\"uri\" xlink:href=\"http:\/\/AlltheWeb.com\">http:\/\/AlltheWeb.com<\/jats:ext-link>) queries from 2001.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1108\/14684520310510037","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2003,12,9]],"date-time":"2003-12-09T18:23:54Z","timestamp":1070994234000},"page":"396-406","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":19,"title":["Are people asking questions of general Web search engines?"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Seda","family":"Ozmutlu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Huseyin C.","family":"Ozmutlu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Amanda","family":"Spink","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Agichtein, E., Lawrence, S. and Gravano, L. (2001), \u201cLearning search engine specific query transformations for question answering\u201d, Proceedings of the 10th World Wide Web Conference, May 1\u20105, Hong Kong, available at: www.www10.org\/cdrom\/papers\/frame.html.","DOI":"10.1145\/371920.371976"},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b2","unstructured":"Jansen, B.J., Spink, A., Pfaff, A. and Goodrum, A. (2000), \u201cWeb query structure: implications for design\u201d, SCI 2000: Systematics, Cybernetics & Informatics, July, Orlando, Florida, Vol. II, International Institute of Informatics and Systematics, Orlando, FL."},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ozmutlu, S., Spink, A. and Ozmutlu, H.C. (2002), \u201cTrends in multimedia Web searching: 1997\u20102001\u201d, Information Processing and Management, Vol. 38 No. 3, pp. 475\u201096.","DOI":"10.1016\/S0306-4573(02)00038-9"},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Prager, J., Brown, E., Coden, A. and Radev, D. (2000), \u201cQuestion\u2010answering by predictive annotation\u201d, Proceedings of ACM SIGIR, July, Athens, Greece, pp. 184\u201091.","DOI":"10.1145\/345508.345574"},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Silverstein, C., Henzinger, M., Marais, H. and Moricz, M. (1999), \u201cAnalysis of a very large Web search engine query log\u201d, ACM SIGIR Forum, Vol. 33 No. 3, available at: www.acm.org\/sigir\/forum\/F99\/Silverstein.pdf.","DOI":"10.1145\/331403.331405"},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Spink, A. and Ozmutlu, H.C. (2002), \u201cCharacteristics of question format Web queries: an exploratory study\u201d, Information Processing and Management, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 453\u201071.","DOI":"10.1016\/S0306-4573(01)00042-5"},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Spink, A., Jansen, B.J., Wolfram, D. and Saracevic, T. (2002), \u201cFrom e\u2010sex to e\u2010commerce: Web search changes\u201d, IEEE Computer, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 133\u20105.","DOI":"10.1109\/2.989940"},{"key":"key2022021620283563100_b8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Spink, A., Ozmutlu, S., Ozmutlu, H.C. and Jansen, J. (2003), \u201cUS versus European Web searching trends\u201d, ACM SIGIR Forum, Vol. 36 No. 2, available at: www.acm.org\/sigir\/forum\/F2002\/spink.pdf.","DOI":"10.1145\/792550.792555"}],"container-title":["Online Information Review"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emeraldinsight.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1108\/14684520310510037","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/14684520310510037\/full\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/14684520310510037\/full\/html","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,25]],"date-time":"2025-07-25T00:40:00Z","timestamp":1753404000000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emerald.com\/oir\/article\/27\/6\/396-406\/303782"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2003,12,1]]},"references-count":8,"journal-issue":{"issue":"6","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2003,12,1]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1108\/14684520310510037"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/14684520310510037","relation":{},"ISSN":["1468-4527"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"1468-4527"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2003,12,1]]}}}