Amy Langville and Carl Meyer, Google’s Page Rank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings

With such a compelling title, this book suggests that it holds the secret to how Web authors can acquire one of their most coveted goals—a high ranking on the Google search engine. The key to that goal, they suggest, is an understanding of Google’s PageRank model. They even float the idea (and quickly reject) that the PageRank equation may rank alongside the great equations of history such as Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism and Einstein’s pervasive E = mc. With an understanding of that equation might come a high Google ranking—perhaps more valuable in today’s IT world than an understanding of the processes of the universe. However, after reading this book, it may be far more realistic to categorize PageRank amongst the great industrial recipes of our time such as the closely guarded formula for Coca-Cola. Like the Coke recipe, PageRank is a well-kept industrial secret, an intellectual property that built an empire, that contributes to the satisfaction of millions of consumers each day, has inspired numerous competitors, and has even generated some memorable lawsuits. The environment in which PageRank evolved certainly makes for a compelling story. From the start of this book, it is clear that the authors really wanted to write a comprehensive work about the mathematics underlying the PageRank. (Approximately twothirds of the book is devoted to mathematics). Perhaps realizing the limited audience that such a book might attract, their mathematical descriptions are wrapped up with descriptions of the history of content search (Web and otherwise), an overview of Web search technologies, an outstanding collection of anecdotes (called ‘‘asides’’) and search-related facts, statistics, and just plain trivia. (Unfortunately, many of these facts are quite out-ofdate with respect to the publication date of the book, but interesting nonetheless.) This format was no doubt designed to make the book accessible to both a general and highly technical audience. For the mathematicians they have certainly succeeded. For those expecting to learn a great deal about ‘‘the science of search engine rankings,’’ this reviewer finds the book coming up short. The brief history of information retrieval is good but too abbreviated. (I, for one, did not know the story of how scrolls evolved into books). Hypertext and Web information