Call for Papers

The 19th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM 2026) will take place in Boise, Idaho, USA, from February 22 – 26, 2026.

WSDM is a premier conference on web-inspired research involving search and data mining. It publishes original, high-quality papers related to search and data mining on the Web and the Social Web, with an emphasis on practical yet principled approaches.

Deadlines

• Abstract Deadline: August 7, 2025
• Submission Deadline: August 14, 2025
• Notifications: October 23, 2025

List of Topics

We invite submissions on a broad range of topics related to search and data mining on the Web and Social Web. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Web Search: Algorithms for web-scale search; Adversarial search; Search user interfaces and interaction; Distributed search, metasearch, peer-to-peer search; Local and mobile search; Multimedia web search, cross-lingual search; Query analysis and query processing; Search benchmarking and evaluation; Search user behavior and log analysis; Search with Foundation Models
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Crawling and indexing web content; Web recommender systems and algorithms; Clustering, classification, and summarization of web data; Data, entity, event, and relationship extraction; Knowledge acquisition and automatic construction of knowledge bases; Large-scale graph analysis; Semantic search, faceted search, and knowledge graphs; Multimodal data mining; Scalable algorithms for mining web data; Opinion mining and sentiment analysis; Web traffic and log analysis; Web measurements, web evolution, and web models.
• Web of Things, Ubiquitous and Mobile Computing: Algorithms for web-scale search; Adversarial search; Search user interfaces and interaction; Distributed search, metasearch, peer-to-peer search; Local and mobile search; Multimedia web search, cross-lingual search; Query analysis and query processing; Search benchmarking and evaluation; Search user behavior and log analysis; Search with Foundation Models
• Privacy, Fairness, Interpretability: Fairness and accountability in ranking, recommendations and advertising; Explainability in web systems; Model and algorithm transparency; Interpretable models of individual and social behavior; Web search and data mining under privacy constraints; Fairness and interpretability in applications of web mining for social good.
• Social Networks: Link prediction and community detection; Social network analysis and graph algorithms; Computational social science; Influence and viral marketing in social networks; Social sensing; Searching social and real-time content; Social network dynamics; Sampling, experiments, and evaluation in social networks; Social media analysis: blogs and friendship networks; Social network analysis, theories, models and applications; Social reputation and trust.
• Intelligent Assistants: Voice search, conversational search, and dialog systems; Personal assistants, dialogue models, and conversational interaction; Task-driven search; Zero-query and implicit search.
• Crowdsourcing and Human Computation: Collaborative search and question answering; Human-in-the-Loop and Collaborative Human-AI systems.
• Emerging and Creative Applications: Web mining for social good; Systems and algorithms for urban applications such as smart cities/buildings/etc; Online education systems; Monitoring and prevention of epidemics; Social chatbots.
• Information Integrity: Systems and algorithms for monitoring and detection of misinformation and fake news; Prevalence and virality of misinformation; Misinformation sources and origins; Source and content credibility; Detecting and combating spamming, trolling, aggression, dog whistles, and toxic online behaviors; Methods for detecting and mitigating low quality and offensive content, bullying and hate speech, and coordinated behavior; Polarization, extremism and radicalization; Echo chambers and filter bubbles.
• Foundation Models for Web Search and Data Mining: Use of large language models (LLMs) and other foundation models for search and mining on the Web, including but not limited to the following tasks: Generative question answering; Indexing and query analysis; Pre-training and self-supervised learning for web-based tasks; Development of new user interfaces and user experiences; Support to information integrity.

Submission Guidelines

• Submissions Portal: Papers can be submitted through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wsdm2026
• Originality: Submissions must represent new and original work. Concurrent submissions to other venues are not allowed. Previously published or currently under review work is prohibited. However, submissions available on preprint servers (e.g., Arxiv) or presented at non-peer-reviewed venues are allowed, provided anonymity is maintained in the submitted paper. Prior work must be appropriately cited.
• Format:
  • Manuscripts must be submitted in PDF according to the new ACM format guidelines (use documentclass [sigconf,anonymous,review]{acmart}).
  • Submissions should not exceed 9 pages including diagrams, tables, and appendices, plus unrestricted space for references and an ethical consideration section.
  • PDF files must be anonymized, with no author information or self-identifying citations.
  • All non-standard fonts must be embedded. Submissions must be self-contained and in English.
• Supplementary Material & Reproducibility: Authors may include references to external repositories for resources, proofs, experimental setup, etc., but only if author anonymity can be strictly maintained. Reviewers are not obligated to examine supplementary material. Authors are encouraged to share experimental results, data, and code.
• Authorship: Manuscripts must adhere to the ACM authorship policy. A limit of 10 manuscript submissions per author is enforced.
• Placeholder titles/abstracts will be desk-rejected.

Review Process

Each manuscript will be reviewed by at least three PC members and a senior PC member. Decisions will consider novelty, technical depth, elegance, impact, and presentation. WSDM 2026 will use a combination of single-blind and double-blind reviewing. Manuscripts will be double-blind to regular and Senior PC members, but metadata will be available to Associate Chairs for conflict of interest checks. Papers not related to the conference theme may be desk-rejected.

Ethical Considerations

Submitted manuscripts should include a section on the ethical implications of the proposed research. This section will not count towards the page limit and should discuss potential negative societal impacts (e.g., fairness, privacy, security, misuse) and appropriate mitigation strategies.

Acceptance and Presentation

At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference (in-person) to present the paper. Each paper requires a paper presentation fee. WSDM 2026 is an in-person conference with no remote presentation options. Papers not presented will be removed from the proceedings.

Publication and Open Access Policy

ACM will transition to 100% Open Access starting January 1, 2026. Authors can publish via the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). Most papers will not require APCs if the author's institution participates in ACM Open. For authors from non-participating institutions, APCs may apply, subject to waivers and discounts. A temporary subsidy for 2026 is available: $250 APC for ACM/SIG members and $350 for non-members.

Program Committee (PC) Membership

Interested individuals with at least 5 years of research experience and prior reviewer experience for WSDM or related conferences are welcome to reach out to pcchairs-wsdm2026@easychair.org. Self-nomination for Senior PC is not accepted.