Semantic Approaches for Query Expansion: Taxonomy, Challenges, and Future Research Directions

As the internet is flooded with an enormous amount of information, information retrieval systems are struggling to deliver ideal results to users. However, query expansion techniques have emerged as a game-changer, significantly enhancing information retrieval. Lately, semantic query expansion techniques have garnered more attention from researchers, as they offer more relevant and practical outcomes to users. By utilizing these techniques, users can retrieve more meaningful and useful information from the web. At present, there exist only a limited number of research works that comprehensively examine semantic query expansion. It is imperative to have a lucid understanding of the various semantic query expansion methods in order to ascertain their capabilities and drawbacks. This article presents a thorough overview of query expansion methods, with a particular emphasis on semantic approaches. It reviews recent frameworks developed between 2015 and 2022 and assesses the limitations of each approach. The challenges inherent in the semantic query expansion field are discussed, along with future research directions. The study highlights the linguistic approach as the most efficient and flexible path for researchers to pursue, while the ontology approach is preferred for domain-specific search applications. Therefore, developing the ontology field can pave the way for future advancements in semantic query expansion. Additionally, leveraging AI and focusing on the query context rather than user intervention can lead to more optimal expanded queries.