PageRank: Viewed through the Linear Algebra Sunglasses
July 27, 2015
I urge you to read and work through the examples in “The $25,000,000,000,000 Eigenvector: The Linear Algebra behind Google.” The write up was a tour be force when it became available in 2006. The explains Google PageRank’s ability to display “the good stuff.” The idea is that the system and method set forth in the PageRank patent finds the most “relevant” Web pages matching a query.
I won’t trouble you with references to some work by Dr. Jon Kleinberg for the CLEVER system. I won’t peel back any of the wrappers which have been layered around the PageRank system after the company went public in 2004.
I will call your attention to a Wall Street Journal article which strikes me as reasonably accurate. The story is “How Google Skewed Search Results.” If you cannot access this document, check out the also acceptable article “Google May Be Hurting Users by Manipulating Search Results, Says Study.”
Fancy math is great in the classroom. Is it possible that good old human intervention works in some situations? And if manipulation does achieve a desired goal, what’s the point of belaboring the fancy math, precedent work, or the subsequent wrapper code?
Stephen E Arnold, July 27, 2015
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