A webometric analysis of online health information: sponsorship, platform type and link structures
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-01-2013-0011 |
| Date | 25 February 2014 |
| Published date | 25 February 2014 |
| Pages | 209-231 |
| Author | Darja Groselj |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval |
A webometric analysis of online
health information: sponsorship,
platform type and link structures
Darja Groselj
Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to map the information landscape as it unfolds to users when they search
for health topics on general search engines. Website sponsorship, platform type and linking patterns
were analysed in order to advance the understanding of the provision of health information online.
Design/methodology/approach – The landscape was sampled by ten very different search queries
and crawled with VOSON software. Drawing on Roger’s framework of information politics on the web,
the landscape is described on two levels. The front-end is examined qualitatively by assessing website
sponsorship and platform type. On the back-end, linking patterns are analysed using hyperlink
network analysis.
Findings – A vast majority of the websites have commercial and organisational sponsorship. The
analysis of the platform type shows that health information is provided mainly on static homepages,
informational portals and general news sites. A comparison of ten different health domains revealed
substantial differences in their landscapes, related to domain-specific characteristics.
Research limitations/implications – The size and properties of the web crawl were shaped by
using third party software, and the generalisability of the results is limited by the selected search
queries. Further research exploring how specific characteristics of different health domains shape
provision of information online is suggested.
Practical implications – The demonstrated method can be used by organisations to discern the
characteristics of the online information landscape in which they operate and to inform their business
strategies.
Originality/value – The study examines health information landscapes on a large scale and makes
an original contribution by comparing them across ten different health domains.
Keywords Search engines,Sponsorship, Webometrics, Healthinformation, Hyperlink analysis,
Platform type
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The diffusion of internet technologies and advancement of online information servi ces
have dramatically changed the ways in which people seek and consume health
information (Sundar et al., 2011). Research shows that the internet is “the de facto
second opinion” people rely on in addition to doctors (Szokan, 2011) and that it strongly
affects how people manage their own or someone else’s health (Fox and Jones, 2009;
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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The author would like to thank Dr Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon and Prof. Ralph Schroeder for their help
and guidance throughout the course of this research. The author would also like to thank Prof. John
Powell and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions, from which the
final version of the paper has benefited greatly. This research was supported by the Slovene Human
Resources Development and Scholarship Fund whichcoveredtheauthor’stuitionfees.
Online health
information
209
Received 16 January 2013
First revision approved
7 May 2013
Online Information Review
Vol. 38 No. 2, 2014
pp. 209-231
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-01-2013-0011
Sadasivam et al., 2013). The internet has altered the landscape of health information,
particularly in terms of expanding the range of available resources, improving access
and empowering patients (Powell et al., 2011; Cline and Haynes, 2001). It makes it
easier for people to seek health information themselves, to become more involved in
their own health and to become exposed to a wider array of health information (Rice,
2006), ranging from organisation-sponsored information websites to interactive
applications such as support forums, online consultations and social media sites (van
der Vaart et al., 2013; Thackeray et al., 2013; Eysenbach, 2008).
The use of the internet for health-related issues is extensive. In the US four out of
five internet users seek health information online, this activity being the third most
popular after emailing and use of search engines (Fox, 2011), and eight in ten online
health enquiries begin by using a general search engine (Fox and Duggan, 2013).
However it is not entirely clear what kind of sources people are most likely to encounter
when searching for health information on general search engines. There is a need for a
more substantial understanding of the online health information landscape across
different health domains. Thus this study addresses the following questions: what
information sources are present and most prominent in the online health realm, how do
they relate to one another, and what do they offer to end-users?
“Information landscape” is not a fully defined term, but scholars often use it to refer
to the constellation of sites providing information on the web (Delamothe, 2001; Eng,
2001; O’Day and Jeffries, 1993). Previous investigations of the health information
landscape differ in scope and in how the entry point to the landscape was determined.
Some authors provide detailed analyses of a handful of websites selected from
exogenously created databases of health-related websites (e.g. Rice et al., 2001; West
and Miller, 2009; Grossman and Zerilli, 2013). While such studies offer insight into
specific websites’ sponsorship, content and features, they do not assess their
prominence or how they relate to other websites in the larger health-related web.
Studies of search results for medical queries are often limited by a small selection of
topic-specific search queries and focus primarily on assessing the quality of provided
information (e.g. Kaimal et al., 2008; Reichow et al., 2012; Quinn et al., 2012; Scullard
et al., 2010; Black and Penson, 2006). There are three notable exceptions: Laurent and
Vickers (2009) examined several thousand queries for different medical conditions, but
they focussed exclusively on Wikipedia’s position in search results; Bowler et al. (2011)
assessed the visibility of online health information portals for teens, but did so for only
six websites; and Kitchens et al. (2012) studied the first pages of search results for over
2,000 health terms, but they focussed on website quality alone.
The present study approaches the health information landscape on a large scale,
taking into account different health domains and thousands of websites for each. The
analysis is twofold, following Roger’s (2004) framework of information politics on the
web where sources are in constant competition for the privilege of providing
information. Rogers distinguishes between the front- and back-end of the web. The
front-end addresses the issues of inclusivity, fairness and scope of representatio n,
whereas the back-end deals with information retrieval. This study sets out to analyse
the front- and back-ends of the health information landscape. First on the visible end,
sponsorship and platform type of the most prominent medical websites are assessed.
Second the back-end of hyperlink connections between websites is analysed in order to
understand how different entities relate to one another, and what informational paths
they create.
OIR
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