The Next Generation of PageRank – New Developments and Future Use in Social Media
PageRank was one of the core components of Google’s initial methodology when determining what rank order to give each website in a search result. In lecture, PageRank was described as a “fluid” that circulates throughout the network, passing from one node to another node across edges and pooling at nodes that were the most important. We also learnt about the PageRank update rule, which states that each node simultaneously divides its current PageRank into equal shares and passes these shares across its outgoing links. Therefore, a page that is linked to by many pages with high PageRank receives a high rank itself and consequently a high rank order, while if there are no links to a page it will have a low PageRank.
With the rapid growth of social networking over the past few years new startups have been trying to develop ways to use the basics of the original PageRank theory in order to design an algorithm that can successfully measure the online influence of an individual and provide a rank for each user. Two key startups developing this social version of PageRank are San Francisco-based Klout and London-based PeerIndex. Both companies rank users based on data from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Klout focuses on “reach” and “amplification”, which is determined by looking at a user’s activity and how much impact it has on their social graph. For example, Klout includes the engagement each user drives from unique individuals by measuring whether posts by the user on Twitter are re-tweeted by others with influence or how many “mentions”, “likes”, “comments” or “shares” a Facebook post drives for the user. PeerIndex looks at a user’s activity on major social networking sites and determines an authority rank for their expertise in eight topic areas (e.g. technology, arts, health and medical) based on how much others look at their posts and comment on their writing.
Figure 1 Klout’s main page for a user showing their score and how it is calculated (Source: Company Website)
In the past few months, both startups have enhanced their algorithms in order to provide more accurate and comprehensive scores for users. In August 2012, Klout considerably changed its algorithms in order to integrate “real-world influence” by taking into account whether a user has a prestigious job (through the title they list on their LinkedIn page) or if they have Wikipedia articles on them (and the authority scores these articles have). PeerIndex has focused on expanding the number of social media sites it analyzes, and in 2011 it included Quora to its list, as the site provides information about the authority of users within specific topic areas. PeerIndex has included the quality of a user’s answers and any votes and comments they get from other users in order to further reinforce the users rank on PeerIndex and their authority score in the eight topic areas that they are assigned.
At this point, many may be wondering why is it important for us to know the scores and social rankings of individuals online? Advertisers and marketing officials believe that these sophisticated algorithms being developed by Klout and PeerIndex can help them identify new “influencers” who they may not know, in order to market their products. Till date marketers have heavily relied on large icons like Michael Phelps, Roger Federer and Wayne Rooney to influence potential users and customers. Klout and PeerIndex now offer them the ability to enhance their pool of influencers by giving them access to smaller bloggers who may have a significant influence in certain topic areas. Companies are already starting to team up with Klout and PeerIndex in order to offer perks to users who have high scores (including discounts, free products and invitations to exclusive events), with the hopes that these influencers will market the products by commenting about them online. Most recently, in early October 2012, to celebrate the launch of its new Fiesta model, Ford joined forces with PeerIndex to provide big influencers the ability to win a new personalized 3D printed model of the new car and the chance to also win a real Ford Fiesta. In order to join the competition, the influencers who were invited have to post their best Ford car photos on the different social media sites that they use. Ford hopes that this initiative will spur interest in the social media space and positively affect sales of its new model.
In addition both startups are also seeing heightened interest and million of dollars in funding from major investors who believe social media PageRanking will dramatically change the marketing of products online. Klout, which has already received funding from major venture capital firms including KPCB and Insitutional Venture Partners, in September 2012 announced that it had received an investment from Microsoft. On top of the new funding, Microsoft has integrated Klout into its Bing search engine so that when you mouseover an expert’s name their Klout score will show up, and if you search key topics (such as “cooking”) you will also see experts with high scores that have been ranked by Klout as relevant to the space. This is a significant development and could change the future of search towards greater social media integration and analytics.
The future of PageRank seems to be heading in the direction of more social media integration. Both Klout and PeerIndex seem to now be seeing the fruits of their labor spent developing these new algorithms. Though, it should be noted that the race is not yet over and there is still a long way to go before we obtain very accurate rankings from these new algorithms. As new updates come we are slowly creeping towards the next generation of PageRank that will focus on social media integration and the development of scores for not just webpages but also individuals.
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References:
(3) http://gigaom.com/2011/03/02/peerindex-quora-pagerank-socialweb/ – PeerIndex’s integration of Quora
(4) http://gigaom.com/2012/08/14/biebs-move-over-for-obama-klout-score-changes-bring-new-users-to-the-top/ – Klout’s recent change to its algorithm
(5) http://www.thedrum.com/news/2012/10/12/ford-targets-peerindex-influencers-fiesta-s-social-media-launch – Ford’s new campaign to launch the Fiesta model and offer perks on PeerIndex
(6) http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/27/growing-its-influence-klout-gets-strategic-investment-from-microsoft-and-serious-bing-integration/ – Investment and strategic partnership for Klout from Microsoft
Google confirmed that social media signals are being integrated in to their algorithm, but they also stated that links are still a priority for search ranking. They even penalized sites for having low quality inbound links, and now they announced a disavow links tool for identifying those links.