Internet time and the reliability of search engines

[Loet Leydesdorff]

 <http://www.firstmonday.org/> First Monday


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 <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/wouters/index.html#author>
Internet time and the reliability of search engines by Paul Wouters, Iina
Hellsten, and Loet Leydesdorff



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 Abstract <http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/wouters/a.gif>
Search engines are unreliable tools for data collection for research that
aims to reconstruct the historical record. This unreliability is not caused
by sudden instabilities of search engines. On the contrary, their
operational stability in systematically updating the Internet is the cause.
We show how both Google and Altavista systematically relocate the time stamp
of Web documents in their databases from the more distant past into the
present and the very recent past. They also delete documents. We show how
this erodes the quality of information. The search engines continuously
reconstruct competing presents that also extend to their perspectives on the
past. This has major consequences for the use of search engine results in
scholarly research, but gives us a view on the various presents and pasts
living side by side in the Internet.




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Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/


 <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff-sci.htm> The Challenge of
Scientometrics ;  <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm> The
Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society

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