A group of Google employees led by Alex Verstak notes that older research articles are gaining more impact on the citation landscape - an effect appears to be accelerating.

Highly-cited articles are associated with greater impact and higher research quality, but these factors are compounded by greater visibility and accessibility. "Hot" articles may receive more citations simply due to their positioning, marketing and topical qualities.

However, it appears that the increasing accessibility of older research has led to more citations, indicating that older articles are still relevant and meaningful in today's research landscape.

The group found that of articles published in 2013, "36% of [their] citations were to articles that were at least 10 years old; this fraction has grown 28% since 1990."

"Now that finding and reading relevant older articles is about as easy as finding and reading recently published articles, significant advances aren’t getting lost on the shelves and are influencing work worldwide for years after," the researchers conclude.

Source: Cornell University.