Web Hyperlinks Reflect Business Performance: A Study of US and Chinese IT Companies

摘要

Hyperlinks to Web sites of information technology (IT) companies in the US and China were examined. The count of links to a company's Web site was found to correlate significantly with the company's revenue and profit. The two sets of correlation coefficients for the two countries were remarkably similar although the two groups of Web sites had very different characteristics. The correlation found is useful for Web data mining and for furthering our understanding of the nature of Web hyperlinks. Various measures were taken to improve the reliability of the data collected. Data collection issues for Webometrics research were also explored.