---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 10:04:26 +0100
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@COGLIT.ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: [Ref-Links] economic effects of link-based search engines on
               e-journals

Eric's observation below, about google's link-frequency-based rankings
is fine for web-wide commerce. But it would be more useful and relevant
for researchers if a special, google-style search engine were devised
that searched only the refereed research literature on keywords, and
then returned results on the basis of citation-link-frequency (i.e.,
the most cited papers on that keyword first).

For this, the refereed (and pre-refereeing) literature needs to be:

(1) identifiable by agreed upon meta-data tagging:
    http://www.openarchives.org

(2) online (preferably full-text and free):
    http://www.eprints.org

and

(3) fully citation-linked:
    http://opcit.eprints.org

See:

    Harnad, S. & Carr, L. (2000) Integrating, Navigating and Analyzing
    Eprint Archives Through Open Citation Linking (the OpCit Project).
    Current Science 79(5) 629-638.
    http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.citation.htm
    http://www.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/sep102000/629.pdf

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad                     harnad@cogsci.soton.ac.uk
Professor of Cognitive Science    harnad@princeton.edu
Department of Electronics and     phone: +44 23-80 592-582
             Computer Science     fax:   +44 23-80 592-865
University of Southampton         http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Highfield, Southampton            http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM

NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00):

    http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html

You may join the list at the site above.

Discussion can be posted to:

    september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org

On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Eric Hellman wrote:

> Google changes everything.
>
> Up to now, the key to the internet has been directories and search
> engines. A mom-and-pop website that managed to get top position for
> the phrase "cell phone" in a top search engine was generating
> $1,000,000 of sales per quarter, earning 10% commissions from
> affiliate programs. What this website did was to figure out the
> combination of keywords and phrases that the search engine liked-
> nothing else.
>
> The current trend in search engines has been to start putting a lot
> of weight onto the frequency and quality of sites that link to a
> particular web page. Led by Google, the new breed of search engines
> get astoundingly good results, at least in part because they're very
> hard to rig with keyword stuffing and the like. Slowly but surely,
> the economic power of sites with rich, properly presented content is
> growing back up to where it should be, and the days of the keyword
> sharpshooters are numbered.
>
> Having other sites link to your web site is now of growing economic
> value. In order for a site to have value in link-based search
> engines, it is important to:
> 1. Have a lot of freely available content.
> 2. Expose the site to indexing robots.
> 3. Receive links in ways that don't confuse robots. This can be
> tricky and engine-dependent. An example relevant to this list is how
> robots deal with redirection as done by the doi proxy. Send me a note
> if you want details, or if you want tips on how to put your site on
> top of google.
>
> It is instructive to look at the google site rankings, and really fun
> when your site comes up at the top:
>
> KEYWORD             GOOGLE'S TOP RATED SITE
> "research"           The Materials Research Society http://www.mrs.org/
> "science"              Space Telescope Science Institute Home Page
> http://www.stsci.edu/
> "nature"               Nature Medicine: Home http://medicine.nature.com/
> "medicine"            Nature Medicine: Home http://medicine.nature.com/
> "physics"             Dept. of Phys. and Astro., Univ. of
> Pennsylvania http://dept.physics.upenn.edu/
> "chemistry"         Journal of Biological Chemistry http://www.jbc.org/
> "semiconductor"   MRS Internet J. of Nitride Semicond. Res.
> http://nsr.mij.mrs.org/
> "psychology"        Journal of Pediatric Psychology
> http://jpepsy.oupjournals.org/
> "mathematics"      Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
> http://www.siam.org/
> "engineering"        mechanical engineering home page
> http://www.memagazine.org/
>
> paid links for the keywords "semiconductor", "engineering"  and
> "medicine" point at a chip company, office.com and drugstore.com,
> indicating real value of the top placement.
>
> In the long run, I believe that many well-designed, free-to-read
> e-journals will derive substantial operating revenue from their
> ability to capture and influence top spots in the new breed of search
> engines.
>
> Eric
> Eric Hellman
> Openly Informatics, Inc.
> http://www.openly.com/           21st Century Information Infrastructure
> LinkBaton: Your Links that Learn     http://my.linkbaton.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Ref-Links maillist  -  Ref-Links@doi.org
> http://www.doi.org/mailman/listinfo/ref-links
>