Monday, 21 August 2006

Search Engines Do Not Control Internet Hierarchy

US researchers say they’ve found Internet search engines are not biased toward popular web sites and may even be egalitarian in the way they direct traffic. The often heard term "Googlearchy," – search engines favoring the most popular sites and helping them to become even ...

The often-heard term 'Googlearchy' – search engines favoring the most popular sites and helping them to become even more popular – is now being challenged by researchers at Indiana University (IU) who have used real world data to test the claims. Their results show that web-surfing behavior isn't as influenced by search-engine rankings as was previously thought.

Some people believe that search engines, by means of their ranking algorithms, create a vicious cycle where popular sites receive more and more hits. "Empirical data do not support the idea of a vicious cycle amplifying the rich-get-richer dynamic of the web," said Filippo Mencer, associate professor of informatics and computer science at Indian University.

"Our study demonstrates that popular sites receive on average far less traffic than predicted by the Googlearchy theory and that the playing field is more even".

The IU team joined hands in web mining, networks and complex systems to collect empirical data from various search engines. In one scenario, users browsed the Web using only random links. In another, users visited only pages returned by the search engines.

The researchers also studied the critical role of search engines in shaping the evolution of the Web. "A simple ranking mechanism provides an elegant model to understand the genesis of a broad class of complex systems, including social and technological networks such as the Internet and the World Wide Web," Fortunato said.

"These networks possess a peculiar 'long-tail' structure in which a few nodes attract a great majority of connections". The long tail structure of the Web is commonly explained through rich-get-richer models that require knowledge of the prestige of each node in the network.

The IU researchers' model finds a striking application in understanding the evolution and social impact of search engines. "By sorting results, search engines give us a simple mechanism to interpret how the web grows and how traffic is distributed among web sites," said Menczer.