Challenges, Techniques and Directions in Building XSeek: an XML Search Engine

The importance of supporting keyword searches on XML data has been widely recognized. Different from structured queries, keyword searches are inherently ambiguous due to the inability/unwillingness of users to specify pinpoint semantics. As a result, processing keyword searches involves many unique challenges. In this paper we discuss the motivation, desiderata and challenges in supporting keyword searches on XML data. Then we present an XML keyword search engine, XSeek, which addresses the challenges in several aspects: identifying explicit relevant nodes, identifying implicit relevant nodes, and generating result snippets. At last we discuss the remaining issues and future research directions.