The impact of Google on discovering scholarly information: managing STM publishers' visibility in Google

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss Google visibility of five large STM publishers (Elsevier, Emerald Publishing, Springer, Taylor & Francis and John Wiley & Sons) with the aim to focus on and investigate various upcoming current issues and challenges of the publishing industry regarding discoverability, promotion strategies, competition, information-seeking behavior and the impact of new information technologies on scholarly information. Design/methodology/approach - The study is based on data retrieved through two commercial online tools specialized in retrieving and saving the data of the domain's visibility in search engines: SEMrush ("SEMrush - Online Visibility Management Platform") and Ahrefs ("Ahrefs - SEO Tools & Resources To Grow Your Search Traffic"). All data gathering took place between April 15 and the May 29, 2019. Findings - The study exhibits the significance of Google visibility in the STM publishing industry taking into consideration current issues and challenges of the publishing activity. Originality/value - This is a "new" trend, certainly of great significance in the publishing industry. The research is conducted in this paper and the theoretical background will be offered to the study of this issue.