Prospective search, or persistent search, is a method of
searching
Searching or search may refer to:
Computing technology
* Search algorithm, including keyword search
** :Search algorithms
* Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence
* Search engine technology, software for findi ...
which determines which of a set of queries matches content in a corpus. Other names include document routing and percolate queries. It is sometimes called reverse search, but that can also refer to finding documents similar to a given document.
This differs from traditional, or "retrospective", search such as
search engines
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
, where the information for the results is acquired and then queried.
Comparison to retrospective search
Ordinary search, also called retrospective search, starts by gathering information, indexing it, then letting users query it. A query produces results if the information is in the corpus at the time the query is issued.
In contrast, prospective search starts with the user's queries, gathers the information in a targeted way, indexes it, and then provides results as they arrive. That is, a query produces results when new information that matches it is added to the corpus.
Sometimes
Ping Servers are used to gather notification of changes to websites so that the information received is as fresh as possible. Users can be notified in a number of ways of new results.
One implementation of prospective search is as saved searches which are re-run when new content is acquired.
Prospective search is well suited to queries where the results change over time, such as the current news,
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
s, and trends.
See also
*
PubSub
*
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, offered by Google. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results—such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or scientific research—that match the user' ...
* Google AppEngine Prospective Search Service (deprecated as of December 1, 2015)
*
Selective dissemination of information
Selective dissemination of information ("SDI") was originally a phrase related to library and information science. SDI refers to tools and resources used to keep a user informed of new resources on specified topics, including the current-awareness ...
*
Superfeedr
Superfeedr is a feed API built on WebSub, which is sometimes referred to as PuSH. It transforms a variety of feeds into standardized RSS, Atom, or JSON format and distributes (or "pushes") them via WebSub or XMPP. This allows subscribers to r ...
('tracker' API
)
References
Internet search
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