Evolution, continuity, and disappearance of documents on a specific topic on the Web: A longitudinal study of "informetrics"

The present paper analyzes the changes that occurred to a set of Web pages related to "informetrics" over a period of 5 years between June 1998 and June 2003. Four times during this time span, in 1998, 1999, 2002, and 2003, we monitored previously located pages and searched for new ones related to the topic. Thus, we were able to study the growth of the topic, while analyzing the rates of change and disappearance. The results indicate that modification, disappearance, and resurfacing cannot be ignored when studying the structure and development of the Web.