How to test search engine results?
During an interview, the interviewer asked me a question that was, Assume that a search engine result from a target query does not meet a requirement based on its position. How would you test it? I tried saying the below things, but it was not enough.
I need a list of input search queries.
I need a target position for each of the queries.
I match each target position with the actual.
Most probably the question was asked with the intent that the interviewer wants to test your approach to solving problems, as this question by itself doesn't provide you with enough context. Maybe he wants to know if you are taking and accumulating enough context before giving solutions or not.
Search engines consider multiple factors to display results.
How the query is parsed.
Natural language algorithms that may refactor the queries.
Various metrics such as:
Popularity
Number of matching words
Keywords
Tags
Weightage is given to each metric.
After knowing all of these and getting a complete idea. you can start with this is a test search and then begin with the answer accordingly.