Search Engines and Scientific Search Engines

Searching for literature via scientific and other search engines in the internet should not replace research conducted in libraries, journal databases and special databases. It should rather be regarded as a potential tool for an additional literature check.

To understand this, one should first consider how search engines work. Search engines discover information by following hyperlinks. This means that they are not able to track information from dynamic websites. Dynamic websites are sites linked with searchable databases (for example special databases and library catalogs). In response to a search, dynamic websites deliver a site with corresponding hits. This data can only be retrieved through search words, not by using hyperlinks.

Furthermore, search engines work with ranking systems and deliver data in a corresponding order. The system behind this ranking, the algorithm, is generally not known to the user.

Links:

Google Scholar

MetaGer

Scirus

Ingenta




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