Additional Factors Influencing Page Rank?

Help me to understand this factors....

[MrRoy]

Hi

While going through Page Rank Explanation in a site, I came across one topic which is given as "Additional Factors Influencing Page Rank". Of all the factors listed under that particular section..I came across one factor which is given as "Distance Between Web Pages".

Can anybody plz explain me what it means actually?

Thanks in advance.

[doc_z]

According to the original papers, PR of a page (A) is given by the PR of the pages (B1, B2, ...) linking to this page as well as the number of links on these pages (N1, N2, ...):

PR_A = (1-d) + d * ( PR_B1 / N1 + PR_B2 / N2 + ... )

d is the damping factor, which is about 0.85.

Thus you can calculate the PR of a page if you know the PR of all incoming links as well as the number of links on these pages. Of course, the PR of the incoming links (as well as the number of links on that pages) are not fixed. PR of the pages B1, B2, ... are calculated in the same way.

Therefore, you will benefit from a page C linking to page B1. The benefit is decreased due to the outgoing links on that pages as well as due to the distance (the reason is the damping factor d). Thus one can say that your benefit depends on the "distance between web pages".

For example, if a very high page is linking to a page which is connected to your page (i.e. you can reach your page from this page within n clicks), the PR of your page is increased. The smaller the distance (n) and the smaller the number of links on the pages, the higher the increase. (Also, the number of ways which lead from this page to your page plays a role.)

However, this benefit is (already) included in the PR of the pages linking to you (B1, B2,... ). Thus knowing these PR values you can calculate the PR of your page (without taking any other page into account).

Of course, in practice the situation is more complicated since PR of page B1, B2, ... could be influenced by the PR of page A. For simplicity - and because these effects are not related to the question - these things are left out in this discussion. Also modifications of the PR algorithms are not discussed.

[ciml]

There is a paper that uses "Distance Between Web Pages" in a different context; basically the opposite of what is normally called 'host affiliation'.

In that context, the distance between pages is basically the degree to which those pages can be determined not to be related (eg. domain, IP address, or whatever).