Internet search engines function in a present which changes continuously. The search engines update their indices regularly, overwriting webpages with newer ones, adding new pages to the index and losing older ones. Some search engines can be used to search for information on the internet for specific periods of time. However, these ‘date stamps’ are not determined by the first occurrence of the pages in the web, but by the last date at which a page was updated or a new page was added and the search engine’s crawler updated this change in the database. This has major implications for the use of search engines in scholarly research as well as theoretical implications for the conceptions of time and temporality. This article examines the interplay between the different updating frequencies by using AltaVista and Google for searches at different moments of time. Both the retrieval of results and the structure of retrieved information erodes over time.
Bar-Ilan, J. (1999) ‘Search Engine Results Over Time-A Case Study on Search Engine Stability’ , Cybermetrics2(3), URL (consulted November 2004) http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v2i1p1.html.
3.
Bar-Ilan, J. (2001) ‘Data Collection Methods on the Web for Informetric Purposes-A Review and Analysis’ , Scientometrics50(1): 7-32 .
4.
Bar-Ilan, J. and B. C. Peritz (2002) ‘Informetric Theories and Methods for Exploring the Internet: An Analytical Survey of Recent Research Literature’ , Library Trends50(3): 371-392 .
5.
Brand, S. (1987) The Media-lab. Inventing the Future at MIT. New York: Penguin Books .
6.
Brewington, B. and Cybenko, G. (2000) ‘Keeping Up with the Changing Web’ , Proceedings of the 9th International World Wide Web Conference, pp. 257-276 . Amsterdam: Elsevier.
7.
Brose, H.-G. (2004) ‘An Introduction Towards a Culture of Non-simultaneity?’ , The Information Society13(1): 5-26 .
8.
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell .
9.
Coveney P. and R. Highfield (1990) The Arrow of Time. London: W.H. Allen .
10.
Dubois, D. M. (1998) ‘Computing Anticipatory Systems with Incursion and Hyperincursion’, in D. M. Dubois (ed.) Computing Anticipatory Systems, Casys-First International Conference, vol. 437, pp. 3-29. Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics .
11.
Elias, N. (1992) Time: An Essay. Oxford: Blackwell .
12.
Goldhaber, M. (2004) ‘The Mentality of Homo Interneticus’ , First Monday9(6), URL (consulted 10 July 2006): http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/goldhaber/index.html
13.
Hassan, R. (2003) ‘Network Time and the New Knowledge Epoch’ , Time and Society12(2-3): 225-241 .
14.
Hellsten, I. (2002) The Politics of Metaphor: Biotechnology and Biodiversity in the Media. Tampere: Tampere University Press .
15.
Hellsten, I. (2003) ‘Focus on Metaphors: The Case of “Frankenfood” on the Web’ , Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication8(4), URL (consulted November (2004): http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol8/issue4/hellsten.html
16.
Husserl, E. (1973[1929]) Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. [Cartesian Meditations and the Paris Lectures]. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff .
17.
Innis, H. A. (2004[1952]) Changing Concepts of Time. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield .
18.
Introna, L. D. and H. Nissenbaum (2000) ‘Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters’ , The Information Society16(3): 169-185 .
19.
Laguerre, M. S. (2004) ‘Virtual Time-The Processuality of the Cyberweek’ , Information, Communication and Society7(2): 223-247 .
20.
Latour, B. (1988) Science in Action. How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
21.
Latour, B. (1991) Nous n’avons jamais été modernes [We Have Never Been Modern]. Paris: La Découverte .
22.
Lewandowski, D. (2004) ‘Date Restricted Queries in Web Search Engines’ , Online Information Review28(6): 420-427 .
23.
Leydesdorff, L. (1994) ‘Uncertainty and the Communication of Time’ , Systems Research11(4): 31-51 .
24.
Leydesdorff, L. (2001) A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society. Parkland, FL: Universal Publishers .
25.
Leydesdorff, L. (2004) ‘The University-Industry Knowlege Relationship: Analyzing Patents and the Science Base of Technologies’ , Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology55(11): 991-1001 .
26.
Leydesdorff, L. (2005) ‘Anticipatory Systems and the Processing of Meaning: A Simulation Inspired by Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems’ , Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation8(2), URL (consulted 10 June 2006): http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/2/7.html
27.
Leydesdorff, L. and I. Hellsten (2005) ‘Metaphors and Diaphors in Science Communication. Mapping the Case of Stem Cell Research’ , Science Communication27(1): 1-36 .
28.
Luhmann, N. (1996) Die Realität der Massenmedien [The Reality of the Mass Media]. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag .
29.
Luhmann, N. (2002) ‘The Modern Sciences and Phenomenology’, in W. Rasch (ed.) Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity, pp. 33-60. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .
30.
Mackenzie, A. (2001) ‘The Technicity of Time’ , Time and Society10(2-3): 235-257 .
31.
Nowotny, H. (1994) Time. Cambridge: Polity Press .
32.
Prigogine, I. and I. Stengers (1988) Entre le temps et l’éternité [Between Time and Eternity]. Paris: Fayard .
33.
Reddy, C. and P. Wouters (2003) The Invisible Web in the EU Research Area, WISER project. Brussels: European Commission .
34.
Risvik, K. and R. Michelsen (2002) ‘Search Engines and Web Dynamics’ , Computer Networks39(3): 289-302 .
35.
Rosen, R. (1985) Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical and Methodological Foundations. Oxford: Pergamon Press .
36.
Salton, G. and M. J. McGill (1983) Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval. Auckland: McGraw-Hill .
37.
Schütz, A. (1932) Der Sinnhafte Aufbau der Sozialen Welt (trans. G. Walsh and F. Lehnert). Vienna: Springer .
38.
Smolensky, P. (1986) ‘Information Processing in Dynamical Systems: Foundation of Harmony Theory’, in D. E. Rumelhart , J. L. McClelland and the PDP Research Group (eds) Parallel Distributed Processing, vol. I, pp. 194-281. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .
39.
Thelwall, M. (2001) ‘The Responsiveness of Search Engine Indexes’ , Cybermetrics5(1), URL (consulted 10 July 2006): http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cybermetrics/articles/v5i1p1.html
40.
Thompson, E. P. (1967) ‘Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism’ , Past and Present38(1): 56-97 .
41.
Urry, J. (2000) Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty First Century. London: Routledge .
42.
Van Couvering, E. (2004) ‘New Media? The Political Economy of Internet Search Engines’ , paper presented at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Conference, University of Sussex, Brighton, 19-22 September.
43.
Vaughan, L. and M. Thelwall (2004) ‘Search Engine Coverage Bias: Evidence and Possible Causes’ , Information Processing and Management40(4): 693-707 .
44.
Wouters, P. and D. Gerbec (2003) ‘Interactive Internet? Studying Mediated Interaction with Publicly Available Search Engines’ , Journal of Computer Mediated Communication8(4), URL (consulted November 2004): http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol8/issue4/wouters.html
45.
Wouters, P. , I. Hellsten and L. Leydesdorff (2004) ‘Internet Time and the Reliability of Search Engines’ , First Monday9(10), URL (consulted November 2004): http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_10/wouters/index.html.
