Small-world linkage and co-linkage

Abstract

The paper presents ideas from a current research project concerned with link structures and small-world phenomena on the WWW, with possible implications for knowledge discovery or `web mining'. The project includes case studies of so-called co-linkage chains consisting of co-linking and co-linked web nodes (analogous to bibliographic couplings and co-citations) in a context of researchers' homepages and published bookmark lists. Key concepts are so-called transversal links and transversal co-linkages (on co-linkage chains) functioning as short cuts or `weak ties' between heterogeneous subject domains and interest communities on the Web. According to a hypothesis in the project, transversal links make the Web more strongly connected and `crumpled up' by creating small-world phenomena in the shape of short distances between nodes in the Web graph.