How are we searching the World Wide Web? A comparison of nine search engine transaction logs
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Google Scholar is highly precise for exploratory searches conducted by a user interested in only a few relevant results on the first search engine results page.
“This makes Google Scholar highly precise for exploratory searches conducted by a user interested in only a few relevant results on the first search engine results page.76, 77”
Cites
Accessibility of information on the web
Lawrence, S., & Giles, C. L. (1999) · Nature · doi:10.1038/21987 · Cited by 1,371 · see citing works
Real life, real users, and real needs: a study and analysis of user queries on the web
Jansen, B. J. J., Spink, A. H., & Saračević, T. (2000) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/s0306-4573(99)00056-4 · Cited by 1,318 · see citing works
Self-citationAnalysis of a very large web search engine query log
Silverstein, C. D., Marais, H., Henzinger, M. R., & Moricz, M. (1999) · ACM SIGIR Forum · doi:10.1145/331403.331405 · Cited by 1,153 · see citing works
Web search behavior of Internet experts and newbies
Hölscher, C., & Strube, G. (2000) · Comput. Networks · doi:10.1016/s1389-1286(00)00031-1 · Cited by 770 · see citing works
Tai, B. Y. T. (2003) · International Journal of Constitutional Law · doi:10.1093/icon/1.1.147 · Cited by 585 · see citing works
From e-sex to e-commerce: Web search changes
Spink, A. H., Jansen, B. J. J., Wolfram, D., & Saračević, T. (2002) · Computer · doi:10.1109/2.989940 · Cited by 470 · see citing works
Self-citationClustering user queries of a search engine
Wen, J.-R., Nie, J., & Zhang, H.-J. (2001) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/371920.371974 · Cited by 412 · see citing works
Belkin, N. J. (1995) · Expert Systems with Applications · doi:10.1016/0957-4174(95)00011-w · Cited by 350 · see citing works
An investigation of user attitudes toward search engines as an information retrieval tool
Liaw, S.-S., & Huang, H. (2003) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0747-5632(03)00009-8 · Cited by 345 · see citing works
Where should the person stop and the information search interface start?
Bates, M. J. (1990) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/0306-4573(90)90103-9 · Cited by 343 · see citing works
Amichai‐Hamburger, Y. (2002) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0747-5632(01)00034-6 · Cited by 312 · see citing works
Web Search: Public Searching of the Web
Spink, A. H., & Jansen, B. J. J. (2005) · Information science and knowledge management · doi:10.1007/1-4020-2269-7 · Cited by 306 · see citing works
Self-citationHourly analysis of a very large topically categorized web query log
Beitzel, S. M., Jensen, E. C., Chowdhury, A., Grossman, D. A., & Frieder, O. (2004) · International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · doi:10.1145/1008992.1009048 · Cited by 304 · see citing works
Huang, C., Chien, L., & Oyang, Y. (2003) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.10256 · Cited by 243 · see citing works
On the justification of Dempster's rule of combination
Voorbraak, F. P. J. M. (1991) · Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1016/0004-3702(91)90060-w · Cited by 202 · see citing works
The history and development of transaction log analysis
Peters, T. A. (1993) · Library Hi Tech · doi:10.1108/eb047884 · Cited by 193 · see citing works
Combining evidence for automatic Web session identification
He, D., Göker, A., & Harper, D. J. (2002) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/s0306-4573(01)00060-7 · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Analysis of anchor text for web search
Eiron, N., & McCurley, K. S. (2003) · doi:10.1145/860435.860550 · Cited by 179 · see citing works
An analysis of Web searching by European AlltheWeb.com users
Jansen, B. J. J., & Spink, A. H. (2003) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/s0306-4573(03)00067-0 · Cited by 177 · see citing works
Self-citationLocality in search engine queries and its implications for caching
Xie, Y.-L., & O'Hallaron, D. (2002) · Proceedings.Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies · doi:10.1109/infcom.2002.1019374 · Cited by 176 · see citing works
Predictive caching and prefetching of query results in search engines
Lempel, R., & Moran, S. (2003) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/775152.775156 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
Mining longitudinal web queries: Trends and patterns
Wang, P., Berry, M. W., & Yang, Y. (2003) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.10262 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
Research on Web search behavior
Hsieh‐Yee, I. (2001) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/s0740-8188(01)00069-x · Cited by 155 · see citing works
Personalisation and recommender systems in digital libraries
Smeaton, A. F., & Callan, J. (2005) · International Journal on Digital Libraries · doi:10.1007/s00799-004-0100-1 · Cited by 149 · see citing works
U.S. versus European web searching trends
Spink, A. H., Özmutlu, S., Özmutlu, H. C., et al. (2002) · ACM SIGIR Forum · doi:10.1145/792550.792555 · Cited by 146 · see citing works
Self-citationA Methodology for Analyzing Web-Based Qualitative Data
Romano, N., Donovan, C., Chen, H., & Nunamaker, J. F. (2003) · Journal of Management Information Systems · doi:10.1080/07421222.2003.11045741 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
Identifying Web browsing trends and patterns
Montgomery, A. L., & Faloutsos, C. (2001) · Computer · doi:10.1109/2.933515 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
Vox populi: The public searching of the web
Wolfram, D., Spink, A. H., Jansen, B. J. J., & Saračević, T. (2001) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.1157 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
Self-citationThe use of web search engines in information science research
Bar‐Ilan, J. (2004) · Annual Review of Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/aris.1440380106 · Cited by 102 · see citing works
Ke, H., Kwakkelaar, R., Tai, Y.-M., et al. (2002) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/s0740-8188(02)00126-3 · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Multitasking information behavior and information task switching: an exploratory study
Spink, A. H. (2004) · Journal of Documentation · doi:10.1108/00220410410548126 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Self-citationNisonger, T. E. (1999) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science · doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(1999)50:11 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
End user searching: A Web log analysis of NAVER, a Korean Web search engine
Park, S., Lee, J. H., & Bae, H.-J. (2005) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2005.01.013 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Using clustering techniques to detect usage patterns in a Web‐based information system
Chen, H., & Cooper, M. D. (2001) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.1159 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
Application of automatic topic identification on Excite Web search engine data logs
Özmutlu, H. C., & Çavdur, F. (2004) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2004.04.018 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
Web searching: A process‐oriented experimental study of three interactive search paradigms
Dennis, S., Bruza, P., & McArthur, R. (2001) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.10015 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Web Search: Public Searching of the Web (Information Science and Knowledge Management)
Spink, A. H., & Jansen, B. J. J. (2005) · Springer eBooks · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Self-citationModeling Users' Successive Searches in Digital Environments
Spink, A. H., Wilson, T. D., Ellis, D. J., & Ford, N. J. (1998) · D-Lib Magazine · doi:10.1045/april98-spink · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Self-citationStochastic modeling of usage patterns in a web‐based information system
Chen, H., & Cooper, M. D. (2002) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.10076 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Experiences retrieving information in the world wide web
Cacheda, F., & Viña, Á. (2002) · Proceedings - IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications/IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications · doi:10.1109/iscc.2001.935357 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Perspectives on information management
(1983) · Data Processing · doi:10.1016/0011-684x(83)90215-0 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Perspectives in information management 1
Kinnell, M. (1990) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/0306-4573(90)90092-g · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Studying E-Journal User Behavior Using Log Files
Yu, L., & Apps, A. (2000) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/s0740-8188(99)00058-4 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Using navigation data to improve IR functions in the context of web search
Hansen, M. H., & Shriver, E. (2001) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/502585.502609 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Online Study Behavior of 100,000 Students Preparing for the SAT, ACT, and GRE
Loken, E., Radlinski, F., Crespi, V. H., et al. (2004) · Journal of Educational Computing Research · doi:10.2190/aa0m-0ck5-2lcm-b91n · Cited by 20 · see citing works
A Framework for Investigating the Interaction in Information Retrieval
Lalmas, M., & Ruthven, I. (1999) · Strathprints: The University of Strathclyde institutional repository (University of Strathclyde) · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Progress in Information Retrieval
Lalmas, M., Rüger, S., Tsikrika, T., et al. (2006) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/11735106_1 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Users' perception of relevance of spoken documents
Tombros, T., & Crestani, F. (2000) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science · doi:10.1002/1097-4571(2000)51:10
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. R. (2020) · Research Synthesis Methods · doi:10.1002/jrsm.1378 · Cited by 2,379 · see citing works
“This makes Google Scholar highly precise for exploratory searches conducted by a user interested in only a few relevant results on the first search engine results page.(76,77) Nevertheless, overall, Google Scholar's search precision has been found to be significantly lower than 1% for systematic searches.”
Background“But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook
Zimmer, M. (2010) · Ethics and Information Technology · doi:10.1007/s10676-010-9227-5 · Cited by 900 · see citing works
Mining query logs: turning search usage data into knowledge
Silvestri, F. (2009) · Foundations and Trends® in Information Retrieval · doi:10.1561/1500000013 · Cited by 194 · see citing works
Asher, A. D., Duke, L. M., & Wilson, S. (2013) · College & Research Libraries · doi:10.5860/crl-374 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
Suicide Postvention Service Models and Guidelines 2014–2019: A Systematic Review
Andriessen, K., Krysinska, K., Kõlves, K., & Reavley, N. (2019) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02677 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
Comas-Forgas, R., Lancaster, T., Calvo-Sastre, A., & Sureda-Negre, J. (2021) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08233 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
Analyzing and mining a code search engine usage log
Bajracharya, S. K., & Lopes, C. V. (2012) · Empirical Software Engineering · doi:10.1007/s10664-010-9144-6 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Portrayal of Smokeless Tobacco in YouTube Videos
Bromberg, J. E., Augustson, E. M., & Backinger, C. L. (2012) · Nicotine & Tobacco Research · doi:10.1093/ntr/ntr235 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Neal, D. M., Campbell, A. J., Williams, L. Y., Liu, Y., & Nussbaumer, D. (2011) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2010.07.015 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Tsai, M.-J., Hsu, C.-Y., & Tsai, C.-C. (2012) · Journal of Science Education and Technology · doi:10.1007/s10956-011-9307-2 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
The contribution of different information sources for adverse effects data
Golder, S., & Loke, Y. K. (2012) · International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care · doi:10.1017/s0266462312000128 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
- Authors
- Jansen, B. J., & Spink, A.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Corresponding author
- Jansen, Bernard J.
- ORCID
- Jansen, Bernard J.
- Venue
- Information Processing & Management
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2006-01
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 248-263
- ISSN
- 0020-0271 (ISSN-L)
- 0306-4573
- OpenAlex
- W2145734075
- Cited by
- 801
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 35 · 2014: 45 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 66
- FWCI
- 116.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Information Processing & Management (publishedVersion)
- QUT ePrints (Queensland University of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information Retrieval and Search Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web Data Mining and Analysis
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Information Literacy
- Keywords
- search engines, user search behavior, Boolean operators, query operators, session duration, query length, query complexity, cross-cultural comparison
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review