Use of temporal expressions in web search

Abstract

While trying to understand and characterize users' behavior online, the temporal dimension has received little attention by the research community. This exploratory study uses two ollections of web search queries to investigate the use of temporal information needs. Using state-of-the-art information extraction techniques we identify temporal expressions in these queries. We find that temporal expressions are rarely used (1.5% of queries) and, when used, they are related to current and past events. Also, there are specific topics where the use of temporal expressions is more visible. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.