What is the title of a Web page? A study of Webography practice

• Main Author: Timothy C. Craven
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Borås 2002-01-01
• Series: Information Research: An International Electronic Journal
• Subjects: bibliographies; files; html; internet; research; world wide web
• Online Access: http://informationr.net/ir/7-3/paper130.html

Few style guides recommend a specific source for citing the title of a Web page that is not a duplicate of a printed format. Sixteen Web bibliographies were analyzed for uses of two different recommended sources: (1) the tagged title; (2) the title as it would appear to be from viewing the beginning of the page in the browser (apparent title). In all sixteen, the proportion of tagged titles was much less than that of apparent titles, and only rarely did the bibliography title match the tagged title and not the apparent title. Convenience of copying may partly explain the preference for the apparent title. Contrary to expectation, correlation between proportion of valid links in a bibliography and proportion of accurately reproduced apparent titles was slightly negative.