Spanish web searching tools: An exploratory study

Abstract

Internet use is linked to telecommunications infrastructure, steady economic development, and country's wealth (Hawkins, 2003). The development of digital infrastructure has been slow in many parts of Latin America, because of the lack of telecom structure, a low per capita GDP, and economic and/or political instability. However, there is an opportunity for growth in Latin American markets. Several governments are initiating digital development programs (Anonymous, 2006). Independent from these infrastructure developments in the Spanish speaking countries, a key issue is the growth of the Spanish language Web. In this paper we report results from a study examining the extent and functionality of Spanish language Web search engines. Related StudiesLimited research has analyzed Spanish language Web search engines. Studies have examined the extent and functionality of the major English-based Web search engines, including multimedia Web search engines (Tjondronegoro & Spink, 2006;Spink and Jansen, 2004). Studies have found that most Web searches are short, and include 2 to 3 words per query, and queries per search (Spink & Jansen, 2004).Technologies for non-English Web searching are not as mature as those developed for searching English content (Chung, et al., 2004). However, multi-language support is not new for major US Web search engines. Searches using Spanish and English languages are not so different. However, there are differences beyond grammatical issues. At this moment major Web search engines available do not distinguish those details. For example, the use of stress and the letter (ñ). However, that is not a significant difference for the searching algorithms.Some differences exist between the Spanish speaking Web users in United States and the typical American user. Some 15 million of Spanish speaking people logged onto the Internet in January and viewed 122.5 pages per day more than the average of 120.5 pages per day. They tend to be more connected with their communities, have a tendency to spend a little more time on-line, and browse for entertainment and news from their home country.Although they are interested in content significant to their culture, they are interested in what is happening in the world (Chandler, 2006). Some use Internet telephones or look for products they cannot find in the States (Gómez, 2005). Unfortunately, limited studies have examined Web search tools that support Spanish speaking users within and outside the United States. Research QuestionsOur research goal was to explore the level of Spanish Web searching tools and evaluate their functionality. The specific research questions examined were:What Web searching tools are available to Spanish speaking users? 1.What are the features of these tools? 2.What are the web search engine restrictions? 3.What are the functionalities of multimedia Web search engines that allow searching in Spanish? 4. Research Design Data CollectionWe first identified 72 Web searching tools via searchengineguide.com (2006). Some links were broken and we...