Search results

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the retrieval effectiveness of search engines taking into consideration both precision and relative recall.

The study is based on search engines that are selected on the basis of Alexa (Actionable Analytics for the web) Rank. Alexa listed top 500 sites, namely, search engines, portals, directories, social networking sites, networking tools, etc. But the scope of study is confined to only general search engines on the basis of language which was confined to English. Therefore only two general search engines are selected for the study . Alexa reports Google.com as the most visited website worldwide and Yahoo.com as the fourth most visited website globally. A total of 15 queries were selected randomly from PG students of Department of Library and Information Science during a period of eight days (from May 8 to May 15, 2014) which are classified manually into navigational, informational and transactional queries. However, queries are largely distributed on the two selected search engines to check their retrieval effectiveness as a training data set in order to define some characteristics of each type. Each query was submitted to the selected search engines which retrieved a large number of results but only the first 30 results were evaluated to limit the study in view of the fact that most of the users usually look up under the first hits of a query.

The study estimated the precision and relative recall of Google and Yahoo. Queries using concepts in the field of Library and Information Science were tested and were divided into navigational queries, informational queries and transactional queries. Results of the study showed that the mean precision of Google was high with (1.10) followed by Yahoo with (0.88). While as, mean relative recall of Google was high with (0.68) followed by Yahoo with (0.31), respectively.

The study highlights the retrieval effectiveness of only two search engines.

The research work is authentic and does not contain any plagiarized work.

The objective of this paper is to characterize the changes in the rankings of the top ten results of major search engines over time and to compare the rankings between these engines.

The papers compare rankings of the top‐ten results of the search engines Google and AlltheWeb on ten identical queries over a period of three weeks. Only the top‐ten results were considered, since users do not normally inspect more than the first results page returned by a search engine. The experiment was repeated twice, in October 2003 and in January 2004, in order to assess changes to the top‐ten results of some of the queries during the three months interval. In order to assess the changes in the rankings, three measures were computed for each data collection point and each search engine.

The findings in this paper show that the rankings of AlltheWeb were highly stable over each period, while the rankings of Google underwent constant yet minor changes, with occasional major ones. Changes over time can be explained by the dynamic nature of the web or by fluctuations in the search engines' indexes. The top‐ten results of the two search engines had surprisingly low overlap. With such small overlap, the task of comparing the rankings of the two engines becomes extremely challenging.

The paper shows that because of the abundance of information on the web, ranking search results is of extreme importance. The paper compares several measures for computing the similarity between rankings of search tools, and shows that none of the measures is fully satisfactory as a standalone measure. It also demonstrates the apparent differences in the ranking algorithms of two widely used search engines.

The purpose of the study is to examine how far search engines have succeeded in retrieving electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) using different search techniques and approaches. This study also compared the search results of search engines to identify the most suitable search engine for searching and retrieving the ETDs.

Fifty ETDs have been selected using systematic random sampling techniques from Shodhganga (a reservoir of Indian theses). These ETDs have been searched through prominent search engines such as Google, Google Scholar, Yahoo and Open Access Theses and Dissertation (OATD) using different search approaches and techniques.

The overall performance of the search engines revealed that Google retrieved most of the ETDs (89%) followed by OATD (88.5%), Yahoo (78%) and Google Scholar (76%), respectively.

The results have brought into light interesting findings regarding search engines in retrieving grey literature.

Pay for performance (PFP) search engines provide search services for documents on the Web, but unlike traditional search engines, they rank documents not on content characteristics, but according to the amount of money the owner of a Web site is willing to pay if a user visits the Web site through the search results pages. A study was conducted to compare the retrieval effectiveness of Overture (a PFP search engine) and Google (a traditional search engine) using a test suite of general knowledge questions. A total of 45 queries, based on a popular game show, “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, were submitted to each of these search engines and the first ten documents returned were analysed using different relevancy criteria. Results indicated that Google outperformed Overture in terms of precision and number of queries that could be answered. Implications for this study are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of Google in everyday online searching activities of Swedish teenagers in different contexts.

The study is qualitative and material has been produced through interviews and observations in two different schools with participants aged 15-16. Goffman’s frame analysis provides the analytical lens for studying how activities are assigned meaning.

Three different framings in relation to using Google and googling are identified in the material: Google and fact-finding, Google as a neutral infrastructure, and Google as an authority. There is an interplay between activity, context, and interaction in defining the role of Google. In relation to school, the fact-finding framing is more pronounced whereas the infrastructure framing comes forth more in their free time activities. The authority framing cuts across both framings and underpins their trust in the search engine.

The study addresses the way that Google is embedded in online activities and how the search engine is viewed in various contexts, as well as how it is made invisible in some contexts. Previous research has not addressed Google’s role in specific in relation to various everyday uses.

To investigate how search engine users manipulate the rankings of search results. Search engines employ different ranking methods in order to display the “best” results first. One of the ranking methods is PageRank, where the number of links pointing to the page influences its rank. The “anchor text,” the clickable text of the hypertext link is another “ingredient” in the ranking method. There are a number of cases where the public challenged the Google's ranking, by creating a so‐called “Google bomb” – creating links to pages they wanted to be highly ranked for given query. Google is chosen as the search engine, because it is currently by far the most popular search engine.

PageRank, one of the major parameters of Google's ranking algorithm is described, and the author explains how this algorithm is exploited by communities of users to promote a certain web page for a specific query. This process is called “Google bombing.” Recent reaction of Google to this phenomenon is also described.

Specific examples of “accomplished Google bombs” show that the public is able to manipulate search results.

Google, instead of being an unobtrusive information retrieval tool has become highly influential in the web scenery. Some users pay for search engine optimization, while others utilize the power of the crowd to influence Google's rankings. This paper supports the claims of Introna and Nissenbaum regarding the power of search engines.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Google visibility of five large STM publishers (Elsevier, Emerald Publishing, Springer, Taylor & Francis and John Wiley & Sons) with the aim to focus on and investigate various upcoming current issues and challenges of the publishing industry regarding discoverability, promotion strategies, competition, information-seeking behavior and the impact of new information technologies on scholarly information.

The study is based on data retrieved through two commercial online tools specialized in retrieving and saving the data of the domain's visibility in search engines: SEMrush (“SEMrush – Online Visibility Management Platform”) and Ahrefs (“Ahrefs – SEO Tools & Resources To Grow Your Search Traffic”). All data gathering took place between April 15 and the May 29, 2019.

The study exhibits the significance of Google visibility in the STM publishing industry taking into consideration current issues and challenges of the publishing activity.

This is a “new” trend, certainly of great significance in the publishing industry. The research is conducted in this paper and the theoretical background will be offered to the study of this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two research questions: What search engine queries lead users to the Auburn University electronic theses and dissertations (AUETDs) collection? Do these queries vary for users in different locations and, if so, how?

Search engine queries used to locate the AUETDs collection were obtained from Google Analytics and were separated into groups based on user location. These queries were assigned to empirically derived categories based on their content.

Most local users’ queries contained person names, variants for thesis or dissertation, and variants for Auburn University. Over a third were queries for the AUETDs collection, while the remainder were seeking theses and dissertations from specific Auburn researchers. Most out-of-state users’ queries contained title and subject keywords and appeared to be seeking specific research studies. Queries from users located within the state but outside of the local area were intermediate between these groups.

Over two-thirds of visits to the AUETDs collection were made by search engine users which reinforces the importance of having repository content indexed by search engines such as Google. The specificity of their queries indicates that full-text indexing will be more helpful to users than metadata indexing alone.

This is the first detailed analysis of search engine queries used to locate an ETDs collection. It may also be the last, as query content for the major search engines is no longer available from Google Analytics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether question and keyword‐format queries are more successfully processed by search engines encouraging answers to searching and keyword‐format querying, respectively. This study aims to investigate whether web user characteristics and choice of search engine affects the relevancy scores and precision of the results.

The results of two search engines, Google and AskJeeves, were compared for question and keyword‐format queries. It was observed that AskJeeves was slightly more successful in processing question‐format queries, but this finding was not statistically supported. However, Google provided results on keyword‐format queries and the entire set of queries, which were statistically superior to those of AskJeeves.

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the age of web user is not as affective on the relevancy score and precision of results as other factors. Interactions of the main factors were also affective on the relevancy scores and precision, meaning that the different combinations of various factors cause a synergy in terms of relevancy scores and precision.

This was a preliminary work on the effect of user characteristics on comprehension and evaluation of search query results. Future work includes expanding this study to include more web user characteristics, more levels of the web user characteristics, and inclusion of more search engines.

The findings of this study provide statistical proof for the relationship between the characteristics of web users, choice of search engine and the relevancy scores and precision of search results.

The purpose of this paper is to compare five major web search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, and Seekport) for their retrieval effectiveness, taking into account not only the results, but also the results descriptions.

The study uses real‐life queries. Results are made anonymous and are randomized. Results are judged by the persons posing the original queries.

The two major search engines, Google and Yahoo, perform best, and there are no significant differences between them. Google delivers significantly more relevant result descriptions than any other search engine. This could be one reason for users perceiving this engine as superior.

The study is based on a user model where the user takes into account a certain amount of results rather systematically. This may not be the case in real life.

The paper implies that search engines should focus on relevant descriptions. Searchers are advised to use other search engines in addition to Google.

This is the first major study comparing results and descriptions systematically and proposes new retrieval measures to take into account results descriptions.