Hyperlink Analysis for the Web Hyperlink analysis algorithms allow search engines to deliver focused results to user queries.This article surveys ranking algorithms used to retrieve information on the Web.

nformation retrieval is a computerscience subfield whose goal is to findall documents relevant to a user queryin a given collection of documents. Assuch, information retrieval should reallybe called document retrieval. Before theadvent of the Web, IR systems were typi-cally installed in libraries for use mostlyby reference librarians. The retrieval algo-rithm for these systems was usually basedexclusively on analysis of the words inthe document. The Web changed all this. Now eachWeb user has access to various searchengines whose retrieval algorithms oftenuse not only the words in the documentsbut also information like the hyperlinkstructure of the Web or markup languagetags. How are hyperlinks useful? The hyper-link functionality alone—that is, thehyperlink to Web page