What are people searching on government web sites?

Abstract

A research on the query log of a government Website search engines is reported. The search queries were extracted from the data and the information was used on the IP addresses to identify users from the data. The data were compared with the previous search analysis for general purpose search engines regarding the average number of terms per query and the results suggest that the public relies on the government Websites to obtain general information needs. Public mainly investigated for the nuclear and radioactive plants and substances, and the government was widely criticized for putting the detailed nuclear plant maps and transportation routes on government Websites after September 11 attacks. Other frequently asked questions of people were related to small topics such as tax information and the Department of Motor Vehicles. Website are not solutions to the problems, and the difference between easy access to information must be balanced.