Perhaps the most significant tool of our internet age is the web search engine, providing a powerful interface for accessing the vast amount of information available on the world wide web and beyond. While still in its infancy compared to the knowledge tools that precede it – such as the dictionary or encyclopedia – the impact of web search engines on society and culture has already received considerable attention from a variety of academic disciplines and perspectives. This article aims to organize a meta-discipline of “web search studies,” centered around a nucleus of major research on web search engines from five key perspectives: technical foundations and evaluations; transaction log analyses; user studies; political, ethical, and cultural critiques; and legal and policy analyses.