On the use of ontologies for an optimal representation and exploration of the web

The use and definition of ontology for the representation and the exploration of knowledge are critical issues for approaches dealing with information retrieval. In this paper, we propose a new ontology-based approach for improving the quality, in terms of relevance, of the results obtained when searching documents on the Internet. This is done by a coherent integration of ontologies, Web data and query languages. We propose new data structures built upon ontologies: the WPGraph and the W 3Graph which allow Web data to be modelled. We also discuss the use of ontologies for an efficient exploration of the knowledge contained in our conceptual structures using ASK, a specific query language introduced in this paper. An experimental validation of our approach is proposed through a prototype supporting our innovative framework.