A utility-oriented hyperlink analysis model for the Web

The analysis of hyperlink structure on the Web has been employed for detecting high quality documents. Quality may correspond to the authority of a document, but could also correspond to its utility, that is how well it enables a user to browse its vicinity. We present a hyperlink analysis model, based on modelling the Web graph as an absorbing Markov chain, that can be employed for both authority and utility analysis of documents. The results of experiments for both types of hyperlink analysis underpin the importance of making this distinction. In addition, we provide evidence that support the investigation of more elaborate hyperlink analysis methods on a query-by-query basis.