Adaptive site map visualization based on landmarks

Site maps are frequently provided on Web sites as a navigation support for Web users. The automatic generation of site maps is a complex task since the structure of the data, semantical and layout aspects have to be considered. One main problem is a concise presentation of site maps since the data to be displayed is usually extensive. The focus of this article is a new method to offer concise site map presentations to Web users by adaptation of site maps to landmarks and search queries. By landmarks we denote important data objects in a Web site, that are determined by information retrieval (IR) methods and used to simplify the Web site graph such that a layout may be generated efficiently. Adaptation of site maps to user queries provides personalized maps that reflect the part of a Web site that is relevant for a specific user. By these means the fraction of the Web site is visualized efficiently as a site map that is adapted to the specific needs of a user. In contrast to previous approaches, the landmark presentation provides a concise view of a larger Web space, which may be applied to disambiguate search results.