Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Why are Websites co-linked? The case of Canadian universities

2007; Springer Nature (Netherlands); Volume: 72; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s11192-007-1707-y

1588-2861

Liwen Vaughan, Margaret E. I. Kipp, Yijun Gao,

Web and Library Services

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.