Query expansion for search improvement

Query expansion is a novel concept, in which the query is expanded to include terms that are not presented in the original query. The purpose is to improve search relevancy output for any given search, as many users are not able to select pertinent words to search. This problem is known as word mismatch. Various approaches have been used to overcome this problem, such as, local analysis and global analysis, pseudo relevance feedback and others. Chou approach which is local analysis approach, although suitable to certain extent, but search relevancy can be improved as it only uses pseudo relevance feedback and it doesn’t use history or any synonyms database. In this study a modified approach of Chou’s work [1] has been proposed, which involves the use of synonyms database for selecting the expansion term. Using standard relevancy criterion algorithm, result shows that the proposed approach is suitable and history based search results in improved efficiency.