Automated functional testing of online search services

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Title: Automated functional testing of online search services
Author(s): Zhou, Zhi Quan; Zhang, Shu Jia; Hagenbuchner, Markus; Tse, T. H.; Kuo, Fei-Ching; Chen, T. Y.
Abstract: Search services are the main interface through which people discover information on the Internet. A fundamental challenge in testing search services is the lack of oracles. The sheer volume of data on the Internet prohibits testers from verifying the results. Furthermore, it is difficult to objectively assess the ranking quality because different assessors can have very different opinions on the relevance of a Web page to a query. This paper presents a novel method for automatically testing search services without the need of a human oracle. The experimental findings reveal that some commonly used search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, and Live Search, are not as reliable as what most users would expect. For example, they may fail to find pages that exist in their own repositories, or rank pages in a way that is logically inconsistent. Suggestions are made for search service providers to improve their service quality.
Publication type: Journal article
Research centre: Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Software Analysis and Testing
Source: Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, Vol. 22, no. 4 (Jun 2012), pp. 221-243
Publication year: 2012
FOR Code(s): 0803 Computer Software
Keyword(s): Internet searching; Metamorphic testing; Software testing; Validation; Verification
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISSN: 0960-0833
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/stvr.437
Peer reviewed