You Can Navigate Between Any Two Websites In 19 Clicks Or Fewer

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You Can Navigate Between Any Two Websites In 19 Clicks Or Fewer

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 19, 2013 @06:37PM from the too-close-for-comfort dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A study done by a Hungarian physicist found that of the billions of websites and over a trillion objects on the web, any given two are separated by no more than 19 clicks. 'Distributed across the entire web, though, are a minority of pages—search engines, indexes and aggregators—that are very highly connected and can be used to move from area of the web to another. These nodes serve as the "Kevin Bacons" of the web, allowing users to navigate from most areas to most others in less than 19 clicks. Barabási credits this "small world" of the web to human nature—the fact that we tend to group into communities, whether in real life or the virtual world. The pages of the web aren't linked randomly, he says: They're organized in an interconnected hierarchy of organizational themes, including region, country and subject area. Interestingly, this means that no matter how large the web grows, the same interconnectedness will rule.'"

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Like most overgeneralizations... by mark-t · 2013-02-19 18:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

... this one is quite obviously false. And illustrates one of the dangers about assuming that extrapolation is equivalent to actual supporting data.
I mean, there are objects behind paywalls that, all by themselves, can be more than 19 clicks away from a highly unrelated web page elsewhere online There are objects which are online that have no external links to them at all. And those are just the obvious ones.
It's an interesting notion, but it's incorrect.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1. Re:Like most overgeneralizations... by Sique · 2013-02-19 21:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If your pages are not connected via links to any extern sites, then by definitionem, they are not part of the World Wide Web.
  
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  .sig: Sique *sigh*
2. Re:Like most overgeneralizations... by Hentes · 2013-02-19 21:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Many times it's not the author being overenthusiastic but the media reports.
What a waste of time by dcollins117 · 2013-02-19 19:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you read the actual article you'll find that his findings "involved a simulated model of the web that he created to better understand its structure. " So this article has nothing to do with the actual internet, but a simulation of it. It's not a noteworthy study, and I'm wondering why I wasted my time reading about it.
Re:Assuming they're linked at all by Sique · 2013-02-19 21:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Then maybe your blog is not part of the World Wide Web, it's just based on the same technologies and can be reached via the same means.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*
Re:I don't think so by BeardedChimp · 2013-02-19 22:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

HAH!
Re:I don't think so by Rockoon · 2013-02-19 22:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

The web is all about bad practices.

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"His name was James Damore."
Re:Assuming they're linked at all by Dishevel · 2013-02-20 03:42 · Score: 1, Insightful

If it is physically connected to the rest of the "World Wide Web" then it is part of the "World Wide Web".
The lack of interested parties linking to it has no bearing.

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Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?