Practice IB Computer Science (CS) Topic C.2 Searching the Web with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for C.2 Searching the Web and mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 style where relevant.
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The effectiveness of web search and the speed of content delivery depend on technical standards and optimization strategies. Website administrators use various tools to guide search engines, while modern image formats help maintain a balance between visual quality and network performance.
Outline the specific role of each of the following in optimizing a website for search engines: Robots.txt files, XML Sitemaps, and meta tags (e.g., title and description).
Explain how a search engine can use a web crawler and an index to retrieve relevant pages for a user’s query.
Explain how 'personalized search' can create a 'filter bubble' for a user, and describe the impact this has on the variety of information retrieved.
Evaluate the use of SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) versus WebP image formats in enhancing a website's performance and user experience.
MetroPulse is a digital news agency that hosts an extensive online archive of historical newspaper articles.
To ensure a professional and uniform appearance across thousands of archived pages, the developers use a single file to manage the visual presentation. The following line is included in the <head> section of every page:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/assets/styles/main.css">
The site features an interactive archive viewer where users can see the date they accessed the specific record. This is handled by a script included in the page footer.
Part of the script in the file archive_utils.js is shown below:
function updateAccessStamp() { const stampElement = document.getElementById("access-timestamp"); const currentTime = new Date(); const formattedDate = "Record retrieved on: " + currentTime.toLocaleString(); if (stampElement !== null) { stampElement.textContent = formattedDate; }}
window.onload = updateAccessStamp;The administrators of MetroPulse want to ensure that their historical records are easily discoverable by researchers using global search engines. They also need to secure the subscriber login area where users manage their accounts.
Identify two benefits of using an external Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file rather than defining styles internally within each individual HTML document.
Explain the processing that occurs within the client's web browser when the updateAccessStamp() function is executed.
Explain two ways in which the developers can use technical configuration files to assist search engine crawlers in indexing the MetroPulse archive effectively.
Distinguish between the GET and POST methods in the context of an HTTP request.
Explain how the implementation of HTTPS protects the data of users logging into the MetroPulse subscriber portal.
HTTPS is not a distinct protocol, but makes specific use of a combination of two separate protocols.
A web application provides a search form that allows a user to search a library database by author name. The user enters an author and submits the form in a web browser. The browser sends the form data to a web server, which runs a server-side script that queries a database and returns an HTML results page to the browser.
Identify these two protocols.
Outline their functions.
Outline the interaction between a user, a web browser and a domain name server when accessing sites on the internet.
Describe the processing that takes place when the form that was sent from the client is received by the web server.
Explain, giving two reasons, why the use of server-side scripting promotes security when retrieving content from databases.
A developer is building a web portal for an open-source documentation project. The portal needs to be highly accessible, performant, and easily indexed by search engines to ensure that users can find technical guides efficiently.
The developer decides to adhere strictly to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for HTML and CSS.
Outline three reasons why adhering to these web standards is beneficial for a web project.
To manage how search engines interact with the portal, the developer includes both a robots.txt file and an XML sitemap.
Explain how these two files assist search engines in the indexing process.
The portal includes a registration form for new contributors. The developer must decide whether to use client-side scripting or server-side scripting for data validation.
Identify two benefits of performing validation on the client side and two benefits of performing it on the server side.
Search engines may use a ranking algorithm (e.g., PageRank) to estimate the importance of pages when ordering search results.
Explain how a page’s ranking can be influenced by links from other pages.
FilmFinder is a movie review site that enables users to search for movie reviews by entering keywords, genres, or movie titles. The FilmFinder site has recently noticed that older reviews are rarely visited compared to newer ones, despite the high quality of the older content.
Describe one factor that might affect the ranking of older reviews on search engines.
Explain how FilmFinder could use meta-tags to improve the visibility of its older movie reviews.
Outline two ways in which FilmFinder could optimize its older reviews for search engines using white hat SEO techniques.