The Google Dilemma

Author(s):  
James Grimmelmann

53 New York Law School Law Review 939 (2009)Web search is critical to our ability to use the Internet. Whoever controls search engines has enormous influence on all of us; whoever controls the search engines, perhaps, controls the Internet itself. This short essay (based on talks given in January and April 2008) uses the stories of five famous search queries to illustrate the conflicts over search and the enormous power Google wields in choosing whose voices are heard on the Internet.

Author(s):  
Adan Ortiz-Cordova ◽  
Bernard J. Jansen

In this research study, the authors investigate the association between external searching, which is searching on a web search engine, and internal searching, which is searching on a website. They classify 295,571 external – internal searches where each search is composed of a search engine query that is submitted to a web search engine and then one or more subsequent queries submitted to a commercial website by the same user. The authors examine 891,453 queries from all searches, of which 295,571 were external search queries and 595,882 were internal search queries. They algorithmically classify all queries into states, and then clustered the searching episodes into major searching configurations and identify the most commonly occurring search patterns for both external, internal, and external-to-internal searching episodes. The research implications of this study are that external sessions and internal sessions must be considered as part of a continuous search episode and that online businesses can leverage external search information to more effectively target potential consumers.


Author(s):  
Anselm Spoerri

This paper analyzes which pages and topics are the most popular on Wikipedia and why. For the period of September 2006 to January 2007, the 100 most visited Wikipedia pages in a month are identified and categorized in terms of the major topics of interest. The observed topics are compared with search behavior on the Web. Search queries, which are identical to the titles of the most popular Wikipedia pages, are submitted to major search engines and the positions of popular Wikipedia pages in the top 10 search results are determined. The presented data helps to explain how search engines, and Google in particular, fuel the growth and shape what is popular on Wikipedia.


Author(s):  
Rotimi-Williams Bello ◽  
Firstman Noah Otobo

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique which helps search engines to find and rank one site over another in response to a search query. SEO thus helps site owners to get traffic from search engines. Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between them lead to major changes in results relevancy. Choosing the right keywords to optimize for is thus the first and most crucial step to a successful SEO campaign. In the context of SEO, keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a webpage is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase. SEO is known for its contribution as a process that affects the online visibility of a website or a webpage in a web search engine's results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers. It is the objective of this paper to re-present black hat SEO technique as an unprofessional but profitable method of converting website users to customers. Having studied and understood white hat SEO, black hat SEO, gray hat SEO, crawling, indexing, processing and retrieving methods used by search engines as a web software program or web based script to search for documents and files for keywords over the internet to return the list of results containing those keywords; it would be seen that proper application of SEO gives website a better user experience, SEO helps build brand awareness through high rankings, SEO helps circumvent competition, and SEO gives room for high increased return on investment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (54) ◽  
pp. 191-229
Author(s):  
Daniel Mider

The text consists of two parts. The first analyzed the internet search techniques – in a general heuristic sense and detailed i.e. specific techniques belonging to the family of query languages – so called operators (logical operators, localization operators, operators for communication channels in social media, chronometric operators, search operators in the content of the www and search operators for specific types of content). Their main function is to clarify search queries. The second part of the text contains a review and analysis of selected internet exploration tools – search engines (global search engines, search engines focusing on user privacy, metasearch engines and multisearch engines, regional search engines and catalogues, people search engines, search engines of gray literature and internet archives). Preview is not exhaustive or deepened, it serves rather the initial orientation of those interested in the search engine universe.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kassaye Yitbarek Yigzaw ◽  
Rolf Wynn ◽  
Luis Marco-Ruiz ◽  
Andrius Budrionis ◽  
Sunday Oluwafemi Oyeyemi ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND The internet is being widely used for seeking health information. However, there is no consensus on the association between health information seeking on the internet and the use of health care services. OBJECTIVE We examined the association between health information seeking via the internet and physician visits. In addition, we investigated the association between online health information seeking and the decisions to visit and not to visit a physician. METHODS We used the cross-sectional electronic health (eHealth) data of 18,197 participants from the seventh survey of the Tromsø Study (Tromsø 7). The participants were aged ≥40 years and living in Tromsø, Norway. We used logistic regression models to examine the association between online health information seeking and physician visits, the decision to visit a physician, and the decision not to visit a physician, with adjustment for the demographic status, socioeconomic status, and health status of the participants. RESULTS The use of Web search engines was associated with a physician visit. However, the association was moderated by age, and the OR decreased as age increased. The ORs for the use of Web search engines were 1.99 (95% CI 1.94-2.02) and 1.07 (95% CI 1.03-1.12) at ages 40 and 80 years, respectively. The decision to visit a physician was associated with the use of Web search engines (OR 2.95, 95% CI 2.03-4.46), video search engines (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.21-1.70), and health apps (OR 1.26, 95% CI 1.13-1.42). The association between social media use and the decision to visit a physician was moderated by gender. Women who used social media had 1.42 (95% CI 1.31-1.55) times higher odds of deciding to visit a physician, whereas the decision to visit a physician was not different between men who used social media and those who did not use social media. Conversely, the decision not to visit a physician was associated with the use of Web search engines (OR 2.78, 95% CI 1.92-4.18), video search engines (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.07-1.51), social media (OR 1.28, 95% CI 1.10-1.49), and health apps (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.07-1.35). CONCLUSIONS Health information found on the internet was positively associated with both the decision to visit a physician and the decision not to visit a physician. However, the association of health information seeking with the decision to visit a physician was slightly stronger than the association with the decision not to visit a physician. This could imply that the use of eHealth services is associated with a resultant increase in physician visits. In summary, our findings suggest that the internet serves as a supplement to health care services rather than as a replacement.


Author(s):  
Thomas T. Kaun

This presentation will explore how the library catalogue, a tool with a long and distinguished history, is changing with the advent of the Internet. We, as library practitioners, know the power of the catalog to find information sources in library collections. But our users, who have become used to having some results regardless of what search terms they enter into Web search engines, are becoming increasingly frustrated with the current OPAC technologies. What are some of limitations of online library catalogues and in what ways are members of the information community and library automation vendors discovering ways of making local resources more available to our users? Information will be presented about recent studies of user behaviour as well as some commercial solutions to the problem of user/catalog interface.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-111
Author(s):  
Oghenemaro Anuyah ◽  
Ashlee Milton ◽  
Michael Green ◽  
Maria Soledad Pera

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine strengths and limitations that search engines (SEs) exhibit when responding to web search queries associated with the grade school curriculum Design/methodology/approach The authors employed a simulation-based experimental approach to conduct an in-depth empirical examination of SEs and used web search queries that capture information needs in different search scenarios. Findings Outcomes from this study highlight that child-oriented SEs are more effective than traditional ones when filtering inappropriate resources, but often fail to retrieve educational materials. All SEs examined offered resources at reading levels higher than that of the target audience and often prioritized resources with popular top-level domain (e.g. “.com”). Practical implications Findings have implications for human intervention, search literacy in schools, and the enhancement of existing SEs. Results shed light on the impact on children’s education that result from introducing misconception about SEs when these tools either retrieve no results or offer irrelevant resources, in response to web search queries pertinent to the grade school curriculum. Originality/value The authors examined child-oriented and popular SEs retrieval of resources aligning with task objectives and user capabilities–resources that match user reading skills, do not contain hate-speech and sexually-explicit content, are non-opinionated, and are curriculum-relevant. Findings identified limitations of existing SEs (both directly or indirectly supporting young users) and demonstrate the need to improve SE filtering and ranking algorithms.


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