ABSTRACT - The Web has become a worldwide
repository of information, which individuals, companies,
and organizations utilize to solve or address various
information problems. Many of these Web users utilize
automated agents to gather this information for them. It is
assumed that this approach represents a more sophisticated
method of searching. However, there is little research
investigating how Web agents search for online
information, In this research, we examine how agents
search for information on Web search engines-, ,including
the session, query. term, duration and frequency of
interactions. For this sh~dy, we analyzed queries that 2,717
agents submitted to the Alta Vista search engine on 8
September 2002. Findings include: (I) agents interacting
with Web search engines use queries comparable to human
searchers, (2) Web agents are searching for a relatively
limited variety of information, with only 18% of the !em
used being unique, and (3) agent - Web search engine
interaction typically spans several hours with multiple
instances of interaction per second