Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
Google is used across the world as a major source of information. It remains the top search engine by some distance and is used as a source of studies in reviews.
Objectives:
To investigate yield of specific types of search terms across all Google search engines.
Methods:
One post-GCSE school student on a one-week placement downloaded the definitive list of all Google engines; chose search phrases for relevance, currency and potential controversy; searched each engine on the same day (7-8 July 2013); and recorded total hits and comparative percentages.
Results:
Although there is impressive consistency in results there is also odd regional variation within Google. Searching the Google site in Bosnia with 'randomized' yielded considerably more than other sites. This applied to Israel when its Google site was searched with the more specific 'randomized and schizophrenia'. Again, peoples' names (Andy Murray, Lelia Duley) yielded reasonably consistent numbers except for a few outlying Google sites. (Andy Murray seems more popular in the Bahamas.) Political or 'laden' phrases also followed the same pattern. Results from China's Baidu.com were not consistent with Google.
Conclusions:
We are unsure why this variation occurs. It may be that some searches are more popular in certain countries and so machine-generated fuzzy logic promotes topics differently by region. Certainly, Google seems a powerful, but potentiality fickle, source of information if a researcher's aim is to identify all evidence of the effects of care.
Google is used across the world as a major source of information. It remains the top search engine by some distance and is used as a source of studies in reviews.
Objectives:
To investigate yield of specific types of search terms across all Google search engines.
Methods:
One post-GCSE school student on a one-week placement downloaded the definitive list of all Google engines; chose search phrases for relevance, currency and potential controversy; searched each engine on the same day (7-8 July 2013); and recorded total hits and comparative percentages.
Results:
Although there is impressive consistency in results there is also odd regional variation within Google. Searching the Google site in Bosnia with 'randomized' yielded considerably more than other sites. This applied to Israel when its Google site was searched with the more specific 'randomized and schizophrenia'. Again, peoples' names (Andy Murray, Lelia Duley) yielded reasonably consistent numbers except for a few outlying Google sites. (Andy Murray seems more popular in the Bahamas.) Political or 'laden' phrases also followed the same pattern. Results from China's Baidu.com were not consistent with Google.
Conclusions:
We are unsure why this variation occurs. It may be that some searches are more popular in certain countries and so machine-generated fuzzy logic promotes topics differently by region. Certainly, Google seems a powerful, but potentiality fickle, source of information if a researcher's aim is to identify all evidence of the effects of care.