Give a example of one of the problems with word-based indexing. For
example, I wanted to find information on the Java programming and just
found stuff on coffee (polysemy problem).

layaabr,

A problem with word based indexing is semantics. Like you mentioned,
you were looking for the programing language Java, and you got coffee
results. Semantics is defined as the meaning or the interpretation of
a word, sentence, or other language form.

Such as when someone says "It's cool" it could mean temprature wise or
popularity wise

Here is an article on how overcoming semantics can help with word
based indexing difficulties
http://lsi.research.telcordia.com/lsi/papers/execsum.html

If this answer requires further explanation, please request
clarification before rating it, and I'll be happy to look into this
further.
Nenna-GA
Google Answers Researcher

---

Clarification of Answer by nenna-ga on 30 Apr 2004 14:00 PDT

You can also find more links such as the one I posted by doing a google search for
problems with word based indexing
://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=problems+with+word-based+indexing+&btnG=Search

Nenna-GA
GAR