Accuracy of the Altavista search engine as a tool for webometric research

Abstract

The phenomenal growth in the size and importance of the Internet as a communications medium makes it an obvious target of scholarly interest. What is its size? Growth rate? Change rate? Information structure? Information retrieval characteristics? Do classical informetric laws apply? How do people use it? We know that the Altavista database is incomplete, but if it can be shown to produce ranked results with a strong correlation to a more complete database it will provide some support for the validity of any research conducted in this manner. However, if the results do not have a strong correlation it will raise further questions about the validity of using Altavista for this type of webometric research.