No Googlearchy!
A group of researchers at the University of Indiana School of Informatics have produced a study that unexpectedly comes to the defence of search engines in their study "The Egalitarian Effect of Search Engines".
Quote:
The findings contradict a popular view of the presence of a hierarchy among the engines, which suggests they cater to more predominant sites, known as the “Googlearchy” hypothesis.
The study was supposed to prove a previous UCLA study which suggests search engines cater to more predominant sites but in fact turned out to contradict it. Unfortunately there is no link to the actual paper.
via Digg
- Y! MyWeb
really...
One has to wonder about the integrity of such data. When exactly did they query Google and Yahoo! to determine this "research"? During an update? Partially during an update? On which engine? In what market segment?
I can't envision a single scenario that would allow them, via the public SE interface, to gather meaningful data for such a study.