Web Matrix: WWW Worm

World Wide Web Worm

Key Links

Organization

• The Worm uses an exclusively searchable interface to locate documents.
  • The search engine is based on a simple csh script and related tools.
  • Features and Limitations
    • Supports multiple keywords, by applying a Boolean And or Boolean Or to all terms, or regular expression keywords.
    • There is no support for any other advanced searching techniques such as Proximity Searching, Controlled Vocabulary, or or Root and Suffix Management.
  • Users can limit results to 1, 5, 50, 500, or 5000 documents, but these documents are not sorted in any particular order.
  • The Search Engine lets you search across one of the following at a time: anchor text, URL text, or document titles.
• Searching on the Worm requires HTML forms.
• The indexed documents are not restricted by content or type.

Administration

• The Worm locates documents by searching the Web, but also supports user registration
• The server returns matches pretty quickly (considering the underlying engine) -- usually within 20 seconds.
• There is no indication of the number of documents the server spans, but the Worm software has not run since September 1994.
• Additional Services
  • The front page offers a short introduction and several example searches.
  • The author also maintains a subject catalog called the Mother of all BBSs.

Evaluation

• Strengths
• Weaknesses

Example Usage

• Topic
• Keyword(s), Boolean search controls
• Documents delivered
• Output format