Automatic construction of vertical search tools for the Deep Web

With the constant increase in the volume of information available on the Web, it is more dificult to find the specific information related to a given domain. Users are facing the problem of information overload, in which a query about a specialized subject (local information, e-commerce: hotels, airlines, car rental; science: biology, mathematics, medicine, etc.) on a web search engine, it returns a lot of web pages or results that in most of the cases are outside the domain of interest. This is one reason why the vertical search tools have become a necessity for users that seek specific-domain information from diferent databases available in the Web through input sources called Web Query Interfaces (ICWs). This paper describes an approach for automatic integration of ICWs, a crucial task to construct vertical search tools. The proposed methodology is validated by realizing a vertical search prototype called VSearch that allows users to transparently query multiple web databases in a specific-domain through a unified ICW. The proposed approach for automatic ICWs integration is based on: i) a hierarchical model called AEV for modeling the visual content of ICW; ii) semantic clustering for the identification of relationships between fields in ICWs; and iii) a field homogenization and unification process of AEV schemes for the construction of a unified ICW. The VSearch prototype was implemented and evaluated using a study case. The experimental results demonstrate the high precision in the integration phase and an efective methodology to create a functional vertical search tool for a given domain