A comparison of source distribution and result overlap in web search engines

Yagci, Nurce; Sünkler, Sebastian; Häußler, Helena Rosalia; Lewandowski, Dirk

doi:10.1002/pra2.758

Publisher DOI:	10.1002/pra2.758
Title:	A comparison of source distribution and result overlap in web search engines
Language:	English
Authors:	Yagci, Nurce Sünkler, Sebastian Häußler, Helena Rosalia Lewandowski, Dirk
Keywords:	Google; search engine; source comparison; web scraping; Web search
Issue Date:	14-Oct-2022
Publisher:	Wiley
Journal or Series Name:	Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Volume:	59
Issue:	1
Startpage:	346
Endpage:	357
Abstract:	When it comes to search engines, users generally prefer Google. Our study aims to find the differences between the results found in Google compared to other search engines. We compared the top 10 results from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Metager, using 3,537 queries generated from Google Trends from Germany and the US. Google displays more unique domains in the top results than its competitors. Wikipedia and news websites are the most popular sources overall. With some top sources dominating search results, the distribution of domains is also consistent across all search engines. The overlap between Google and Bing is always under 32%, while Metager has a higher overlap with Bing than DuckDuckGo, going up to 78%. This study shows that the use of another search engine, especially in addition to Google, provides a wider variety in sources and might lead the user to find new perspectives.
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12738/15238
ISSN:	2373-9231
Review status:	This version was peer reviewed (peer review)
Institute:	Department Information und Medienkommunikation Fakultät Design, Medien und Information
Type:	Article
Appears in Collections:	Publications without full text