Re: Hyperlink Search Engine

Dan Fabulich (dfab@cinenet.net)
Thu, 31 Jul 1997 07:21:26 -0700


At 09:51 PM 7/30/97 -0700, Anton Sherwood wrote:
>Um, I don't get it. How does an "anchor description" (whatever that is)
>amount to a rating?

Again from their web site:

"As an example of how Hyperlink Vector Voting works, consider the web site
of the Kelley Blue Book car pricing service.=A0 Hundreds of web authors have
established hyperlinks to this popular site.=A0 They each describe the link
in their own way.=A0 Examples of descriptions (anchor text) of hyperlinks
pointing to the site are:

Kelly Blue Book=A0 [note popular misspelling of "Kelley"]=20
Check the value of the vehicle you own or want=20
Used car bluebook values=A0 [note misspelling of "blue book" as one word]=20
New and used car dealer prices=20
Kelley's Blue Book=20
Automobile prices=20
Used car values=20
Used car pricing=20
New car cost=20
Automotive bluebooks

According to the Hyperlink Vector Voting algorithm, each of these
descriptions constitute an opinion, or vote, as to what the referred page
is about.=A0 The more popular any particular description for a site, the mor=
e
votes it gets -- and thus the more weight it receives in the Hyperlink
Search Engine.=A0 A search on the misspelled "Kelly bluebook" will correctly
return the Kelley site with a strong score, because other web authors used
the same misspellings to describe the site!"

Anyway, the algorithm is almost secondary... Go TRY it. It's surprisingly
good.

-WHEN YOUR ONLY TOOL IS A HAMMER-
-EVERY PROBLEM STARTS TO LOOK LIKE A NAIL-