Search by links

2002/03/07 Carton Virto, Eider - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Internet

Find one of the secrets to not waste time on the Internet. But the powerful services to which we have access users do not ensure that we will find what we are looking for. From the Princeton NEC Research Institute it has been proposed to take more advantage of the links in order to perform effective searches adapted to particular interests.

The starting point of the search is the community structure of the network, since websites on a topic tend to interconnect with each other. Although links can be made between all websites, the reality is very different and websites are divided into thematic groups. The seekers are aware and take it into account, but not at all. The Gary Flake team of the NEC Research Institute, based on links between websites, has created a new search algorithm and, as they have said, Yahoo! And they have been able to find high quality websites that escape Google search engines. Flake claims that seekers do not fully reflect the community structure of the Internet.

The algorithm has been tested from web pages of prestigious scientists, namely biologist Francis Crick, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and computer scientist Ronald Rivest, and the algorithm has found web pages related to the biography, work and research fields of these researchers. All the results are closely related to the subject and, for Flake, this property is very interesting for anyone who wants to perform specific searches.

The first search engine that took into account the links in the searches was Google, since at the time of classifying the pages, the link of the web A to the website B is considered vote for B. Unlike the new algorithm, it does not take into account all the links on the A website.

Flake wants the new algorithm to be a complement to existing search systems, since the structures generated by the links can offer the possibility to perform adapted and more effective searches. For Flake this tool is especially interesting for scientists, as they have a great tendency to join their pages. But it will serve for everyone.

The Internet community map is now being done to test how the algorithm works without the homepage.

More information:Nature