Purpose – The purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of Google (as an international search engine) as well as of Parsijoo, Rismoon, and Yooz (as Persian search engines). Design/methodology/approach – In this research, Google search engine as an international search engine, and three local ones, Parsijoo, Rismoon, and Yooz, were selected for evaluation. Likewise, 32 subject headings were selected from the Persian Subject Headings List, and then simulated work tasks were assigned based on them. A total of 192 students from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were asked to search for the information needed for simulated work tasks in the selected search engines, and then to copy the relevant website URLs in the search form. Findings – The findings indicated that Google, Parsijoo, Rismoon, and Yooz had a significant difference in the precision, recall, and normalized discounted cumulative gain. There was also a significant difference in the effectiveness (average of precision, recall, and NDCG) of these four search engines in the retrieval of the Persian resources. Practical implications – Users using an efficient search engine will attain more relevant documents, and Google search engine was more efficient in retrieving the Persian resources. It is recommended to use Google as it has a more efficient search. Originality/value – In this research, for the first time, Google has been compared with local Persian search engines considering the new approach (simulated work tasks).

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