dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaOptimal ranking in networks with community structure
| Authors | Huafeng Xie, Koon-Kiu Yan, Sergei Maslov |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0510107 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510107 |
Abstract
The World-Wide Web (WWW) is characterized by a strong community structure in which groups of webpages (e.g. those devoted to a common topic or belonging to the same organization) are densely interconnected by hyperlinks. We study how such network architecture affects the average Google rank of individual communities. Using a mean-field approximation, we quantify how the average Google rank of community webpages depends on the degree to which it is isolated from the rest of the world in both incoming and outgoing directions, and $\alpha$ -- the only intrinsic parameter of Google's PageRank algorithm. Based on this expression we introduce a concept of a web-community being decoupled or conversely coupled to the rest of the network. We proceed with empirical study of several internal web-communities within two US universities. The predictions of our mean-field treatment were qualitatively verified in those real-life networks. Furthermore, the value $\alpha=0.15$ used by Google seems to be optimized for the degree of isolation of communities as they exist in the actual WWW.
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"abstract": "The World-Wide Web (WWW) is characterized by a strong community structure in\nwhich groups of webpages (e.g. those devoted to a common topic or belonging to\nthe same organization) are densely interconnected by hyperlinks. We study how\nsuch network architecture affects the average Google rank of individual\ncommunities. Using a mean-field approximation, we quantify how the average\nGoogle rank of community webpages depends on the degree to which it is isolated\nfrom the rest of the world in both incoming and outgoing directions, and\n$\\alpha$ -- the only intrinsic parameter of Google\u0027s PageRank algorithm. Based\non this expression we introduce a concept of a web-community being decoupled or\nconversely coupled to the rest of the network. We proceed with empirical study\nof several internal web-communities within two US universities. The predictions\nof our mean-field treatment were qualitatively verified in those real-life\nnetworks. Furthermore, the value $\\alpha=0.15$ used by Google seems to be\noptimized for the degree of isolation of communities as they exist in the\nactual WWW.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0510107",
"authors": [
"Huafeng Xie",
"Koon-Kiu Yan",
"Sergei Maslov"
],
"categories": [
"physics.soc-ph"
],
"title": "Optimal ranking in networks with community structure",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510107"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
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"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
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