Terminology: The queries people use sometimes don't match up with the words and phrases used in the content being searched. During allergy season, for example, many people look for information on
"hayfever", but the
results without synonyms aren't that great since the web pages we're searching across don't necessarily use this specific term. However, if the technical phrase
"allergic rhinitis" is added as a synonym for
"hayfever", the
results with the synonym are far better.
Acronyms: Acronyms often stand for different terms in different contexts. This is especially true within organizations, where acronyms are used frequently. In such cases, it may be possible to improve retrieval via the use of synonyms. Thus,
"PAMF" refers to
"Palo Alto Medical Foundation", and adding this synonym improves search results: searching for
"PAMF" without synonyms gives only a few relevant results, while the CSE with the synonym returns
more relevant results.
Community: Within specific target user communities, words or phrases have different usage and significance. When a patient is looking for
"hearing doctor", adding the synonym
"audiologist" to the CSE provides
much better results while the results in the CSE without synonyms
are not optimal. Conversely, if a doctor is searching for
"somnambulism", she finds
no results at all in the CSE without synonyms, but
much better results via addition of the synonym
"sleepwalking" to the CSE. Synonyms can therefore be used to improve the experience of specific classes of users of a web site.
