Questions and answers
Looking for answers for a particular information need is one of the main uses of the Web. Over time, technology has evolved and Internet users have been changing their online behaviors.
The way people look for information on the Internet nowadays is quite different from 15-20 years ago. Back in the early days, looking for answers mainly meant using a search engine. A study on query logs from a popular search engine in the late 90s (Searching the Web: The Public and Their Queries by Amanda Spink and others, 2001) has shown that in those days, a typical search was very short (on average, 2.4 terms).
In recent years, we started experiencing a transition from short keyword-based search queries to longer conversational queries (or should we say, questions). In other words, search engines have been moving from keyword matching to Natural Language Processing (NLP). For example, Figure 6.1 shows how Google tries to autocomplete a query/questions from the user. The system...
