Despite significant growth of the Web in recent years, some portions of the Web remain largely underdeveloped, as shown in
a lack of high quality content and functionality. An example is the Arabic Web, in which a lack of well-structured Web directories
has limited users’ ability to browse for Arabic resources. In this research, we proposed an approach to building Web directories
for the underdeveloped Web and developed a proof-of-concept prototype called Arabic Medical (AMed) Web Directory that supports
browsing of over 5,000 Arabic medical Web sites and pages organized in a hierarchical structure. We conducted an experiment
involving Arab subjects and found that AMed directory significantly outperformed a benchmark Arabic Web directory in terms
of browsing effectiveness and user ratings. This research thus contributes to developing a useful Web directory for organizing
information of the Arabic medical domain and to better understanding of supporting browsing on the underdeveloped Web.
Keywords Browsing - information seeking - Arabic - medical domain - meta-searching - Web directory - underdeveloped Web - user study - experiment