PurposeTo provide an integrated perspective to similarities and differences between approaches to automated classification in different research communities (machine learning, information retrieval and library science), and point to problems with the approaches and automated classification as such.Design/methodology/approachA range of works dealing with automated classification of full‐text web documents are discussed. Explorations of individual approaches are given in the following sections: special features (description, differences, evaluation), application and characteristics of web pages.FindingsProvides major similarities and differences between the three approaches: document pre‐processing and utilization of web‐specific document characteristics is common to all the approaches; major differences are in applied algorithms, employment or not of the vector space model and of controlled vocabularies. Problems of automated classification are recognized.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper does not attempt to provide an exhaustive bibliography of related resources.Practical implicationsAs an integrated overview of approaches from different research communities with application examples, it is very useful for students in library and information science and computer science, as well as for practitioners. Researchers from one community have the information on how similar tasks are conducted in different communities.Originality/valueTo the author's knowledge, no review paper on automated text classification attempted to discuss more than one community's approach from an integrated perspective.