Kosmix: Exploring the Deep Web using Taxonomies and Categorization

We introduce topic exploration, a new approach to information discovery on the web that differs significantly from conventional web search. We then explain why the Deep Web, an inhospitable region for web crawlers, is emerging as a significant information resource. Finally, we describe the anatomy of Kosmix, the first general-purpose topic exploration engine to harness the Deep Web. The Kosmix approach to the Deep Web leverages a huge taxonomy of millions of topics and their relationships, and differs significantly from that adopted by web search engines such as Google.