Blog search engines
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520710780421 |
| Published date | 14 August 2007 |
| Date | 14 August 2007 |
| Pages | 467-479 |
| Author | Mike Thelwall,Laura Hasler |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Blog search engines
Mike Thelwall
School of Computing and Information Technology,
University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK, and
Laura Hasler
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences,
University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore the capabilities and limitations of weblog search
engines.
Design/methodology/approach – The features of a range of current blog search engines are
described. These are then discussed and illustrated with examples that illustrate the reliability and
coverage limitations of blog searching.
Findings – Although blog searching is a useful new technique, the results are sensitive to the choice
of search engine, the parameters used and the date of the search. The quantity of spam also varies by
search engine and search type.
Research limitations/implications – The results illustrate blog search evaluation methods and do
not use a full-scale scientific experiment.
Originality/value – Blog searching is a new technique, and one that is significantly different from
web searching. Hence information professionals need to understand its strengths and weaknesses.
Keywords Information retrieval, Information services
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The information sources available to librarians and other information professional
have expanded from the traditional shelves of books to a plethora of online
repositories. In parallel, information retrieval techniques have developed from the card
index system to keyword searching and the advanced Boolean interfaces available for
the typical digital library and web search engines. Information professionals need to
keep track of the new information sources and technologies, understanding what is
available, how to access it, and how to interpret or evaluate the results. For example,
the need to educate users to evaluate the provenance of information found on the web is
now accepted, although controversies such as the recent debate over the reliability of
Wikipedia entries continue to arise. Of the myriad new types of online search (e.g. new s
aggregators Chowdhury and Landoni, 2006), blog searching is one of the mos t unusual.
Blogs are mini web sites containing entries in reverse chronological order. They are
often updated daily or weekly and frequently take the form of a personal diary (Herring
et al., 2004), a specialist information resource (e.g. theshiftedlibrarian.com) or a political
commentary (Trammell and Keshelashvili, 2005). Although a few “A-list” blogs are
relatively authoritative, with readerships of hundreds of thousands for their timely
political or technological commentaries (Trammell and Keshelashvili, 2005), the
majority of blogs carry little authority and the content of most is probably trivial, or
crass and opinionated (Weiss, 2004). Hence, from a traditional librarian’s perspective
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Blog search
engines
467
Refereed article received
20 October 2006
Revision approved for
publication 22 November
2006
Online Information Review
Vol. 31 No. 4, 2007
pp. 467-479
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684520710780421
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