title: Quality of healthcare websites: A comparison of a general-purpose vs. domain-specific search engine.
abstract: In a pilot study, we had five typical Internet users evaluate the quality of health websites returned by a general-purpose search engine (Google) and a healthcare-specific search engine (Healthfinder). The evaluators used a quality criteria developed by Mitretek/Health Information Technology Institute. Although both search engines provided high quality health websites, we found some important differences between the two types of search engines.
authors.affiliation: College of Information Sceinces and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Parrk, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Abraham
authors.forename: Madhu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reddy
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D010865:Pilot Projects