Why Are Websites Co-linked? The Case of Canadian Universities

Why Are Websites Co-linked? The Case of Canadian Universities

Vaughan, Liwen

Kipp, Margaret

Gao, Yijun

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-007-1707-y (Scientometrics)

Springer Netherlands

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Scientomatrics, 72(1): 81-92

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eng

Text

10.1007/s11192-007-1707-y

This study examined why Websites were co-linked using Canadian university Websites as the test set. Pages that co-linked to these university Websites were located using Yahool. A random sample of 859 co-linking pages (the page that initiated the co-link) was retrieved and the contents of the page, as well as the context of the link, were manually examined to record the following variables: language, country, type of Website, and the reasons for co-linking. The study found that in over 94% of cases, the two co-linked universities were related academically; many of these cases (38%) showed a relationship specifically in teaching or research. This confirms results, from previous quantitative studies, that Web co-links can be a measure of the similarity or relatedness of sites being co-linked and that Web co-link analysis can thus be used to study relationships among linked Websites.

2007-06-17

11 pages