Researching from multiple-documents online is an essential activity, but it has generally been overlooked by second language (L2) educators. This study uses navigation tracking, eye tracking, a post-reading recall task, and interviews to examine the degree to which Japanese L2 readers maintain task awareness when researching online. Key reading variables analyzed were attention to relevant versus irrelevant pages and repeated versus novel content. Finally, the experiment analyzed the connection between the reading measures and post-reading recall scores. The findings suggest that the readers displayed moderate competence overall, but some participants lacked strategic competence. There was a significant correlation between reading relevant content and recall performance. The research has several implications for L2 instructors.