Link Checking: A Quicker Path to Quality Web Resources

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Link Checking A Quicker Path to Quality Web
Resources

• Paul B. Barron
• Director of the Library and Archives
• George C. Marshall Foundation
• barronpb_at_marshallfoundation.org
• 540-463-7103

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Presentation Objectives

• Define a link and a link anchor
• Discuss the benefits of link checking and anchor
  searching
• Introduce the link checking syntaxes
• inanchor influenza vaccination
• linkhttp//www.cdc.gov/flu
• Recommend anchor and link checking search engines
• Demonstrate the Touchgraph visual display of
  Google related sites

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Recommended Search Engines
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Search Engine Ranking Factors

• Factors that influence a Web documents rank in
  Ask, Google, MSN, Yahoo
• Title Tag
• Anchor Text of Links
• Keyword Use in Document Text
• Accessibility of Document
• Links to Document from Site Internal Pages
• Primary Subject Matter of Site
• External Links to Linking Pages
• Link Popularity of Site in Topic Community
• Global Link Popularity of Site
• Keyword Spamming

http//www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-fact
ors.php
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What is a hyperlink or link?

• A hyperlink, or simply a link
• is a Web document reference pointing to another
  document or other resource,
• can retrieve the referenced resource,
• is similar to a citation
• The link description is called an anchor.

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The Hyperlink

• The link is the first significant form of
  punctuation to emerge in centuries. A link is a
  way of drawing connections between things of
  binding together disparate ideas in digital
  prose.
• Interface Culture
• Steven Johnson

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Components of a Link

• The Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
• Web address pointing to a page
• URLs are fixed.
• The Anchor Text
• Describes the link
• Mutable, a webmaster can name the link whatever
  he/she wants.

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Search Exercise Introduction

• Review
• Operators
• Boolean
• Domain Name System
• Top Level Domains
• Country Code Top Level Domains

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AND Boolean Operator

• AND Both of the search terms are present in
  the Web documents.

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OR Boolean Operator

• OR At least one of the search terms is present
  in the Web documents.

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NOT Boolean Operator

• NOT Only one of the search terms is present in
  the Web documents.

NOTE Google uses the minus (-) sign.
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Top Level Domains (TLDs)
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Top Level Domains
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Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD)
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Link Checking The Research

• A Web page author links to the best and most
  popular pages within the same category. This
  creates a small Web between pages with similar
  topics.
• "Growing and Navigating the Small World Web by
  Local Content
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• October 2002
• Filippo Menczer

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Links Citations

• Study - Examine links to research-oriented
  websites determine if links are analogous to
  citations
• Results In 57 of the links, the reason for
  linking was to amplify the content of the
  source page
• Conclusion Links to research-oriented sites
• are analogous to citations.
• Web Links as Analogues of Citations
• Information Research, Vol. 9 No. 4, July 2004
• http//informationr.net/ir/9-4/paper188.htmlKim

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The Power of Citation Linking

• References cited by authors (which) have
  become the primary links in publishers' digital
  databases. The greatest advancements in linking
  have been the links to cited and citing
  references, the technical counterparts of
  referring to other works.
• Linking on Steroids PÉTER JACSÓ
• Information Today
• Vol. 21 No. 7 July/August 2004

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Link Checking Why do it?

• Quality sites link to other quality sites.
• Link popularity search engines
• Effective search technique
• Indication of web site credibility (Sometimes!)

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Reliable Medical Information

• HONs mission is to guide healthcare consumers
  and providers on the World Wide Web to sound,
  reliable medical information and expertise.

http//www.hon.ch/
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Search Results
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The HON Code Principles
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Be cautious!

• Links to HON do not indicate that HON accredited
  the linking site.
• The HON logo on a site does not guarantee that
  HON has accredited the site.
• Images can be copied and pasted.
• To determine if a site is accredited, use the
  HONcodeHunt.

http//www.hon.ch/HONcode/Conduct.html
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Basic Link Check
NOTE You must include the http// in the query
or the search will fail.
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The Link to HON on the UCLA Site
The link to HON
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Using Google for a Link Check
QUESTION Does the number of returns surprise
you?
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.org-limited Link Check
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Boolean Link Check
RECOMMENDATION Nest your queries to organize
keep like items together.
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Complex Boolean Link Check
linkhttp//www.hon.ch AND (influenza AND
vaccination) AND (elderly or senior citizen)
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.gov-Limited Link Check
RECOMMENDATION Review sites that have a
bibliography or a webliography.
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Site-limited Search
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.gov-Limited Link Check
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Excluding a Site
NOTE The number of results decreased by thirty
sites.
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Verifying Site Credibility
http//www.gatt.org
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Verifying Site Credibility
QUESTION What domain-limited check will verify
the real World Trade Organization site?
http//www.wto.org
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Verifying Site Credibility
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Verifying Site Credibility
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Remember the Components of a Link?

• The Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
• Web address pointing to a page
• URLs are fixed.
• The Anchor Text
• Describes the link
• Mutable, a webmaster can name the link whatever
  he/she wants.

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Remember the Ranking Factors?

• Factors that influence a Web documents rank in
  Ask, Google, MSN, Yahoo
• Title Tag
• Anchor Text of Links
• Keyword Use in Document Text
• Accessibility of Document
• Links to Document from Site Internal Pages
• Primary Subject Matter of Site
• External Links to Linking Pages
• Link Popularity of Site in Topic Community
• Global Link Popularity of Site
• Keyword Spamming

http//www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-fact
ors.php
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Anchor Checking The Research

• Anchors, the text of links, often provide more
  accurate descriptions of web pages than the pages
  themselves.
• The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web
  Search Engine
• Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page
• http//www-db.stanford.edu/backrub/google.html

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Anchor Checking The Research

• The link anchor method for site finding was
  approximately twice as effective as the content
  finding method.
• We conclude that link anchor text provides a
  valuable source of information for use in site
  finding tasks, even within collections less than
  0.1 of the size of the Web.
• Effective Site Finding using Link Anchor
  Information
• http//research.microsoft.com/users/nickcr/pubs/cr
  aswell_sigir01.pdf

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Anchor Phrase Search
REMEMBER The anchor is the webpage editors text
description of the link.
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Anchor Check with Boolean Expression
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PubMed Full Text Journal Article
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Opening the Full Text
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FREE Full Text on PubMed
When you see me think FREE!
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.gov-limited Anchor Check
REMEMBER Searches can be limited to any Top
Level Domain such as com, edu, info, org, and
us.
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County-limited Search
Note In the UK .ac.uk Academic.co.uk
Commercial.gov.uk - Government.org.uk -
Association
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Site-limited Anchor Check
Site-limited searches return only results from a
specific website.
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Visual Display of Related Sites
http//www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

• Google related list web pages that are "similar"
  to a specified web page.
• Not linked to, but similar

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Related Sites Display
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An Ocean of Information
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Lets summarize!

• Tell me again why I am doing anchor checks.
• Link descriptions (anchors) may better describe
  the contents of the page.
• Anchor searches may return better results than
  text searches .

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Lets summarize!

• Tell me again why I am doing link checks.
• Quality sites link to other quality sites.
• Sites link to amplify the content of the source
  page.
• Link checking is analogous to citation searching.
• Link checking may be an indication of website
  credibility.

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Homework! Comparison Search