Mechanics of Search/Retrieval

HEPNRC uses Verity Search97 information server
Users really search an index, not the Internet
A robot or spider retrieves pages and builds an index
- Most sites are updated nightly
- Some collections updated weekly
Index/collection is a list of words that a document contains
- Takes a document, notes its URL, and remembers all words
Searching a collection is fast
- When a match is found it returns a pointer to the document
- Almost all searches return results within 15 milliseconds