Self-organization and identification of Web communities

TLDR

The Web’s rapid growth in hyperlinked knowledge offers great potential for analyzing interests and relationships, yet its decentralized, unorganized nature hampers content analysis. Our work shows that the Web self-organizes and its link structure enables efficient community identification without central authority.

Abstract

The vast improvement in information access is not the only advantage resulting from the increasing percentage of hyperlinked human knowledge available on the Web. Additionally, much potential exists for analyzing interests and relationships within science and society. However, the Web's decentralized and unorganized nature hampers content analysis. Millions of individuals operating independently and having a variety of backgrounds, knowledge, goals and cultures author the information on the Web. Despite the Web's decentralized, unorganized, and heterogeneous nature, our work shows that the Web self-organizes and its link structure allows efficient identification of communities. This self-organization is significant because no central authority or process governs the formation and structure of hyperlinks.