Search results

This paper evaluates the precision of four metasearch engines (MSEs) – DuckDuckGo, Dogpile, Metacrawler and Startpage, to determine which metasearch engine exhibits the highest level of precision and to identify the metasearch engine that is most likely to return the most relevant search results.

The research is divided into two parts: the first phase involves four queries categorized into two segments (4-Q-2-S), while the second phase includes six queries divided into three segments (6-Q-3-S). These queries vary in complexity, falling into three types: simple, phrase and complex. The precision, average precision and the presence of duplicates across all the evaluated metasearch engines are determined.

The study clearly demonstrated that Startpage returned the most relevant results and achieved the highest precision (0.98) among the four MSEs. Conversely, DuckDuckGo exhibited consistent performance across both phases of the study.

The study only evaluated four metasearch engines, which may not be representative of all available metasearch engines. Additionally, a limited number of queries were used, which may not be sufficient to generalize the findings to all types of queries.

The findings of this study can be valuable for accreditation agencies in managing duplicates, improving their search capabilities and obtaining more relevant and precise results. These findings can also assist users in selecting the best metasearch engine based on precision rather than interface.

The study is the first of its kind which evaluates the four metasearch engines. No similar study has been conducted in the past to measure the performance of metasearch engines.

Accurate information is the basis for well-informed decision-making, which is particularly challenging in the dynamic reality of a pandemic. Search engines are a major gateway for obtaining information, yet little is known about the quality and scientific accuracy of information answering conspiracy-related queries about COVID-19, especially outside of English-speaking countries and languages.

The authors conducted an algorithmic audit of Google Search, emulating search queries about COVID-19 conspiracy theories in 10 different locations and four languages (English, Arabic, Russian, and Hebrew) and used content analysis by native language speakers to examine the quality of the available information.

Searching the same conspiracies in different languages led to fundamentally different results. English had the largest share of 52% high-quality scientific information. The average quality score of the English-language results was significantly higher than in Russian and Arabic. Non-English languages had a considerably higher percentage of conspiracy-supporting content. In Russian, nearly 40% of the results supported conspiracies compared to 18% in English.

This study’s findings highlight structural differences that significantly limit access to high-quality, balanced, and accurate information about the pandemic, despite its existence on the Internet in another language. Addressing these gaps has the potential to improve individual decision-making collective outcomes for non-English societies.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has long been a key topic in marketing research, but there are very few studies addressing SEO success and brand equity (BE). Thus, this study aims to investigate the interdependence of SEO success and BE, with a specific focus on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The study involved conducting interviews with SEO and digital marketing experts, followed by a comprehensive analysis of their responses to investigate the mutual association between BE and SEO. The analysis of the interview data was conducted using the grounded theory approach.

The placement of a brand on top of search engine results is perceived as an indication of its credibility by searchers. Well-established brands tend to have superior SEO performance due to the impact of search algorithms and their powerful brand recognition. Lesser-known brands should improve their SEO performance to enhance their BE.

This study makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the interdependence between SEO and BE. Specifically, this study provides SMEs with effective SEO strategies to enhance their BE in the future.

This study presents unprecedented findings on the reciprocal relationship between SEO success and BE. The study also highlights the potential risk for SMEs of falling into a negative spiral due to poor SEO performance and offers practical business solutions to address this issue.

This study aims to discover how domain familiarity and language affect the cognitive load and the strategies applied for the evaluation of search engine results pages (SERP).

This study used an experimental research design. The pattern of the experiment was based upon repeated measures design. Each student was given four SERPs varying in two dimensions: language and content. The criteria of students to decide on the three best links within the SERP, the reasoning behind their selection, and their perceived cognitive load of the given task were the repeated measures collected from each participant.

The evaluation criteria changed according to the language and task type. The cognitive load was reported higher when the content was presented in English or when the content was academic. Regarding the search strategies, a majority of students trusted familiar sources or relied on keywords they found in the short description of the links. A qualitative analysis showed that students can be grouped into different types according to the reasons they stated for their choices. Source seeker, keyword seeker and specific information seeker were the most common types observed.

This study has an international scope with regard to data collection. Moreover, the tasks and findings contribute to the literature on information literacy.

Given that online search visibility is influenced by various determinants, and that influence may vary across industries, this study aims in investigating the major predictors of online search visibility in the context of blood banks.

To formalize the online visibility, the authors have found theoretical foundations in activity theory, while to quantify online visiblity the authors have used the search engine optimization (SEO) Index, ranking, and a number of visitors. The examined model includes ten hypotheses and was tested on data from 57 blood banks.

Results challenge shallow domain knowledge. The major predictors of online search visibility are Alternative Text Attribute (ALT) text, backlinks, robots, domain authority (DA) and bounce rate (BR). The issues are related to the number of backlinks, social score, and DA. Polarized utilization of SEO techniques is evident.

The methodology can be used to analyze the online search visibility of other industries or similar not-for-profit organizations. Findings in terms of individual predictors can be useful for marketers to better manage online search visibility.

The acute blood donation problems may be to a certain degree level as the information flow between donors and blood banks will be facilitated.

This is the first study to analyze the blood bank context. The results provide invaluable inputs to marketers, managers, and policymakers.

In the wake of the fourth industrial revolution, where most information is accessible online, archives should be visible online for them to fulfil their legislated mandate and facilitate access to information resources. The Covid-19 pandemic has further underscored the importance of online platforms in making archives accessible without the public having to visit archival institutions physically. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which public archival institutions of South Africa are visible online with the view to deepen their understanding of how archives promote themselves online.

The study employed content analysis to establish the online content of public archival institutions in South Africa. A google search was conducted using the names of the archival institutions as search terms. The top results obtained after the search were recorded for further analysis.

The findings suggest that public archival institutions in South Africa have limited online presence. Only the National Archives of South Africa had an active website with collections that are accessible online. Some provincial archives had websites hosted by their parent bodies while others had no websites at all. Only the Limpopo and Eastern Cape provincial archives had their Facebook pages in the top results. There were no signs of other social media sites in the top results.

The study concludes that public archival institutions are not visible online. All provincial archives need to have websites where they can be accessed. The use of social media platforms needs to be prioritised. In this fourth industrial revolution age, people communicate and interact online. Public archival institutions should therefore make it their primary mandate to take the archives to where the people are currently meeting.

As an emerging tool for data discovery, data retrieval systems fail to effectively support users' cognitive processes during data search and access. To uncover the relationship between data search and access and the cognitive mechanisms underlying this relationship, this paper examines the associations between affective memories, perceived value, search effort and the intention to access data during users' interactions with data retrieval systems.

This study conducted a user experiment for which 48 doctoral students from different disciplines were recruited. The authors collected search logs, screen recordings, questionnaires and eye movement data during the interactive data search. Multiple linear regression was used to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that positive affective memories positively affect perceived value, while the effects of negative affective memories on perceived value are nonsignificant. Utility value positively affects search effort, while attainment value negatively affects search effort. Moreover, search effort partially positively affects the intention to access data, and it serves a full mediating role in the effects of utility value and attainment value on the intention to access data.

Through the comparison between the findings of this study and relevant findings in information search studies, this paper reveals the specificity of behaviour and cognitive processes during data search and access and the special characteristics of data discovery tasks. It sheds light on the inhibiting effect of attainment value and the motivating effect of utility value on data search and the intention to access data. Moreover, this paper provides new insights into the role of memory bias in the relationships between affective memories and data searchers' perceived value.

Cross-app interactive search has become the new normal, but the characteristics of their tactic transitions are still unclear. This study investigated the transitions of daily search tactics during the cross-app interaction search process.

In total, 204 young participants' impressive cross-app search experiences in real daily situations were collected. The search tactics and tactic transition sequences in their search process were obtained by open coding. Statistical analysis and sequence analysis were used to analyze the frequently applied tactics, the frequency and probability of tactic transitions and the tactic transition sequences representing characteristics of tactic transitions occurring at the beginning, middle and ending phases. 

Creating the search statement (Creat), evaluating search results (EvalR), evaluating an individual item (EvalI) and keeping a record (Rec) were the most frequently applied tactics. The frequency and probability of transitions differed significantly between different tactic types. “Creat? EvalR? EvalI? Rec” is the typical path; Initiate the search in various ways and modifying the search statement were highlighted at the beginning phase; iteratively creating the search statement is highlighted in the middle phase; Moreover, utilization and feedback of information are highlighted at the ending phase. 

The present study shed new light on tactic transitions in the cross-app interactive environment to explore information search behaviour. The findings of this work provide targeted suggestions for optimizing APP query, browsing and monitoring systems.

This study aims to identify user perception of different qualities of optical character recognition (OCR) in texts. The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of different quality OCR on users' subjective perception through an interactive information retrieval task with a collection of one digitized historical Finnish newspaper.

This study is based on the simulated work task model used in interactive information retrieval. Thirty-two users made searches to an article collection of Finnish newspaper Uusi Suometar 1869–1918 which consists of ca. 1.45 million autosegmented articles. The article search database had two versions of each article with different quality OCR. Each user performed six pre-formulated and six self-formulated short queries and evaluated subjectively the top 10 results using a graded relevance scale of 0–3. Users were not informed about the OCR quality differences of the otherwise identical articles.

The main result of the study is that improved OCR quality affects subjective user perception of historical newspaper articles positively: higher relevance scores are given to better-quality texts.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this simulated interactive work task experiment is the first one showing empirically that users' subjective relevance assessments are affected by a change in the quality of an optically read text.

The purpose of this study is to provide a series of observations to help information professionals understand and anticipate the future developments.

This column delves into artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search and its implications for the open Web to show how multifaceted the impact of generative text AI might be in a single arena.

This framework includes the following observations: future applications are unpredictable, interdependent and will require flexibility, AI’s ability to create the feeling of intelligence combined with the power of language are key to its future; the technology is not neutral, it has biases and significant limitations; its widespread adoption will come with trade-offs that matter; and that libraries should develop a positive vision for how to use it.

For libraries to serve their patrons or embody their values, they must be prepared to grapple with a rapidly evolving technology by understanding the technologies possibilities, what makes it compelling, as well as its limitations and dangers.