How to estimate search application's efficiency?

I hope it belongs here.

Can anyone please tell me is there any method to compare different search applications working in the same domain with the same dataset?

The problem is they are quite different - one is a web application which looks up the database where items are grouped in categories, and another one is a rich client which makes search by keywords.

Is there any standard test giudes for that p开发者_开发技巧urpose?

There are testing methods. You may use e.g. Precision/Recall or the F beta method to estimate a rate which computes the "efficiency". However you need to make a reference set by yourself. That means you will somehow measure not the efficiency in the domain, more likely the efficiency compared to your own reasoning.

The more you need to make sure that your reference set is representative for the data you have.

In most cases common reasoning will give you also the result.

If you want to measure the performance in matters of speed you need to formulate a set of assumed queries against the search and query your search engine with these at a given rate. Thats doable with every common loadtesting tool.