The Deep Web Comprises Two Data Categories - Essay Example

The deep Web comprises two data categories. The first is data that is difficult to obtain using standard searching techniques while the second is data that is not accessible to standard search engines. Examples of the former include information presented in new formats that search engines are yet to recognize and new and/or real-time content that the search engines are yet to index. However, BrightPlanet (2012) finds the second category to be of greater importance because it tends to have deeper content that is intentionally set up to be hidden. This essentially means that an ordinary Internet search will miss out on the vast resources hidden within the deep Web.
To appreciate the importance of the deep Web one has only to look at Bergman's (2001) findings. To begin with, the deep Web is not only 400 to 550 times larger than the surface Web but is also the largest growing category of new information on the Internet. Also, Bergman (2001) argued that the deep Web’s content quality surpasses that of the surface Web by a factor ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 times. Most of all this content is highly relevant to most information needs. This element of relevance to most information needs implies that both academia and business should find access to the deep Web’s resources important.
The world’s biggest search engine, Google was conceived by Sergey Brin and Larry Page when they faced difficulty in finding relevant academic data on the then-early Web. Access to relevant, current, and quality information is the crux of academia. With conventional search engines accessing only about 16% of the information available on the World Wide Web (LaGuardia Community College 2012) academic researchers risk losing out on a vast resource of information-rich literature content. This is especially true given Lewandowski and Mayr's (2006) findings that: firstly, more and more scholarly content is being provided on the Internet, and secondly, researchers are increasingly consulting general-purpose Internet search engines to retrieve these scholarly documents. In addition to this ongoing digitization projects are contributing to the continuous growth of the Invisible Web. In light of this, Academia the importance of accessing the deep Web to academia cannot be gainsaid. Researchers have no option but to devise better tools and techniques to enable better and greater access to this information-rich “portal” of knowledge referred to as the deep Web.
On the other hand, the business has a lot to gain or lose from embracing or spurning the deep Web. Similar to academia, researchers state that the Internet is not only the fastest-growing new medium of all time but has also become the information medium of first resort for many businesses (Lyman & Varian 2003). Read More