What is RAT and how can you use it? – Dirk Lewandowski

This talk introduces the RAT software and its components. The presenter explains what types of studies can be conducted using the software. Furthermore, RAT’s modules for designing studies, collecting data, collecting assessments from jurors, and automatic data analysis are explained.

The Query Sample – Nurce Yagci

A fundamental question for any study based on search queries is how to select appropriate queries. With the Query Sampler, you can derive query sets from the Google Keyword Planner. This allows for choosing keywords based on their search volume instead of just guessing what users might be searching for.

The SEO Classifier – Sebastian Sünkler

The SEO Classifier uses data collected with RAT and looks for indicators of how website owners tried to optimize their pages for search engines like Google. The classification is based on 20+ indicators. Any researcher working with RAT can easily use the SEO classification as an add-on to their studies.

How to RAT? A Hands-On Tutorial to Designing and Conducting Studies with RAT – Nurce Yagci, Sebastian Sünkler, Sebastian Schultheiß, Sonja von Mach

In the tutorials, small groups explore the functionality of RAT and design their own studies. The audience are introduced to creating a study, collecting data from search engines, and analysing the results.

The Rammstein Debate as Represented in Search Engines – Sebastian Sünkler, Sebastian Schultheiß, Helena Häußler

The accusations against singer Till Lindemann of the band Rammstein have triggered a huge media response and initiated a social debate. We used RAT to collect search results and had jurors rate them according to predetermined aspects from the debate to examine how these aspects are represented in the top search results.

Greyzone Medicines and Black Hat SEO – Olof Sundin, Kristofer Söderström

Legitimate pharmacies and grey-zone marketplaces, that sell products of questionable legality and quality, compete in search engine results. This study examines how redirections and search engine poisoning tactics are used as means to reach customers of online pharmacies. The study aims to provide a better understanding of how malicious behaviour reshapes the information infrastructure for search. Black Hat SEO is a type of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that operates on the ‘dark side’ of ethical practices and attempts to manipulate the algorithmic order of Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) in ways that are not intended by the algorithm itself. We use RAT to collect and explore the search results of several medical products. We use various methods to detect malicious redirects and understand their impact on the information infrastructure.

Mapping politics of exclusion on Google search – Ov Cristian Norocel

This study deploys a critical big data approach to examining the extreme-right dynamics of exclusion in the aftermath of the 2015 humanitarian crisis in Europe, by gauging the tentative contours of data voids in Google searches in Germany and Sweden.

How candidates use SEO in Political Elections – Kay Hinz

Election campaign communication is becoming more professional in terms of target group orientation and the tools used. However, the evaluation of SEO usage is still a blind spot in political communication. This presentation is based on data from a full survey for the 2021 federal election for nearly 1,400 candidate websites and shows how SEO has been used. It addresses methods and assumptions from communication and media science as well as information science.

Understanding wind power – Björn Ekström

Tracing suggested queries – Malte Rödl, Jutta Haider

• “EI-Logger Plug-In: Explicit and implicit Logger for elicitation of search engine user’s data“, Hossam Al Mustafa, University of Duisburg-Essen
• “Measuring the Readability of Web Documents“, Mohamed Elnaggar, University of Duisburg-Essen
• “Sentiment analysis for search result snippets“, Nimesh Ghimire, University of Duisburg-Essen
• “A Comparison of Source Distribution and Result Overlap in Web Search Engines“, Helena Häußler, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
• “A forum scraper for the Result Assessment Tool (RAT)", Paul Kirch, University of Duisburg-Essen
• “The competition between fact checks and ‘fake news’ in Google results“, Kamila Koronska, University of Amsterdam and AFP
• “Comparison of Results Shown by Different Search Engines for Climate-Related Topics“, Tuhina Kumar, University of Duisburg-Essen
• “Imprint crawler – a web crawler specialized in the automatic imprint extraction of websites under consideration of the German Legislation“, Marius Messer, University of Duisburg-Essen
• “Googling for diseases: Exploring source types, SEO measures, and information quality of health-related search results“, Sebastian Schultheiß, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
• “What does Google recommend when you want to compare insurance offerings? – A study investigating source distribution in Google’s top search results“, Sebastian Sünkler, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
• “Automated web page classification: A systematic literature review“, Nurce Yagci, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences