Classifying links for substantive Web Impact Factors

摘要

This exploratory study develops a classification of links, based on Hie nature of source and target pages, and the reason for linking. This classification is applied to a sample of research oriented websites: those of universities, professional institutes, research institutes, electronic journals, and individual researchers. Some tentative conclusions are drawn about the nature of the links in the study. A definition of substantiveness of links is proposed, based on the classification. This indicated that overall, 20% of the links in the study could be regarded as substantive research links.