Using Web Page Titles to Rediscover Lost Web Pages

TL;DR

This paper explores using web page titles to identify lost pages by querying search engines, showing improved detection of bad titles but limited success in confirming good ones.

Contribution

It introduces a method to predict web page status based on title analysis, enhancing the detection of missing pages using search engine queries.

Findings

Better at identifying bad titles indicating lost pages

Limited effectiveness in confirming good titles

Provides a basis for improving web page recovery techniques

Abstract

Titles are denoted by the TITLE element within a web page. We queried the title against the the Yahoo search engine to determine the page's status (found, not found). We conducted several tests based on elements of the title. These tests were used to discern whether we could predict a pages status based on the title. Our results increase our ability to determine bad titles but not our ability to determine good titles.