Search Engines going beyond Keyword Search: A Survey Mahmudur Rahman School of Computing and Information Sciences Florida International University, Miami, FL Email: mrahm004@cs.fiu.edu Abstract In order to solve the problem of information overkill on the web or large domains, current information retrieval tools especially search engines need to be improved. Much more intelligence should be embedded to search tools to manage the search and filtering processes effectively and present relevant information. As the web swells with more and more data, the predominant way of sifting through all of that data keyword search will one day break down in its ability to deliver the exact information we want at our fingertips. Hence search engines are trying to break the shackles of the concept of keyword search what typically most search engines do. This paper tries to identify the major challenges for today’s keyword search engines to adapt with the fast growth of web and support comprehensive user demands in quick time. Then it surveys different non-keyword based paradigms proposed, developed or implemented by researchers and different search engines and classifies those approaches according to the feature the search engines focus on to deliver result. Keywords: keyword based search, semantic web search, search engine, faceted search, information retrieval 1. Introduction Search is one of the keys to the web’s success. If a company or government is not on the web, it effectively does not exist. Search engines have for- ever changed the way people access and discover knowledge, allowing information about almost any subject to be quickly and easily retrieved within seconds. As increasingly more material becomes available electronically, the influence of search en- gines on our lives will continue to grow. Indeed, the main way we access the web is via that wee box that from a few words seems to read our mind and return a list of links to resources we want. So successful has this approach to finding information become that on the one hand it is difficult to re- member how we managed to find any information at all prior to web based keyword search, and on the other, it is difficult to envision needing or wanting any other tool for information discovery. If we can find it with Google, what more do we need? Suc- cessful paradigms can sometimes constrain our abil- ity to imagine other ways to ask questions that may open up new and more powerful possibilities. It en- ables us to do so much information discovery that it is difficult to imagine what we cannot do with the paradigm of continually refining search terms to get help a busy person find a better job quickly, effectively, that is a match for his passion and skills. And if that person could use some extra training to support that skill to get that better job, how would the Google paradigm bring in that highly relevant information that is outside the constraints of the keyword search? In the Information Retrieval and Information Seeking literature, these kinds of more complex, rich information discovery and knowledge building tasks have been modeled in terms of search strate- gies and tactics. Today’s web consists of various types of data and the search engine need to pro- vide the data according to the user’s query. The demand for providing exploration facility to users rather than keyword search is getting stronger day by day and search engines are trying to add new dimension or features to support these alternate kinds of search and knowledge building. Also the Preprint submitted to Elsevier June 25, 2013