[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Is google a conceptual graph engine?
Hi, I gave some thoughts on what has been said about Google and the fact that its classification schema is link based. Are there any issues with that statement? "Google is a tacit conceptual graph engine". Analysis: --------- When two documents are linked together a statement, a logical relationship is established between these two documents. XHTML or HTML doesn't allow to explicitly specify the "role" played by this link. Said differently, the only clue about this relationship is contained in the <a> element's data content. However, this could be tremendously ambiguous and any automated agent will struggle to find such logical relationship from the contained information. Take as an example the following link: <a href="index.html">home</a> Expressed as a conceptual graph: [currentDoc]->(home)->[index.html] ---- CurrentDoc is index.html's home Even if the link meant the inverse relationship I doubt that it makes more sense :-) [index.html]->(home)->[currentDoc] ----- index.html is currentDoc`s home. Hummmm... Is that true? Are documents having a home? Maybe if we have the tacit knowledge that a web document home is the domain name. Now the problem is how can we interpret these links from destination to source or vise versa. Sometime the relationship makes sense in one direction and sometime in another. If we map the relationship to the <a> element direction then we have currentDoc is index.html's home which is contrary to what is really meant. Some SEO (Search Engine Optimizers) are using optimization techniques and label their links with key phrases. The key phrase contains targeted keywords for the particular purpose to be well ranked. As an example: <a href="index.html">XML Guide</a> [currentDoc]->(guide)->[index.html] ---- currentDoc is a guide to index.html Even taking the reverse doesn't make more sense [index.html]->(guide)->[currentDoc] ---- index.html is a guide to currentDoc Now if we are using xlink, some additional information can be added <a xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="index.html" xlink:role="partOf">XML Guide</a> Since the source is currentDoc and the destination index.html, then the conceptual graph for this statement is: [currentDoc]->(partOf)->[index.html] --- currentDoc is part of index.html Which could make sense if we consider that the first document represents the cover page or that it is the domain's table of contents (most of the time, the document associated to the domain is also a table of contents linking to the other documents). Based on this premise, documents are organized as a hierarchy and the document associated to the domain is the root. Now the problem is, for any classification agent that in other to satisfy mercantile appetites (or simply to pay the monthly bills) some people knowing that agent are using the role to establish relationship between two documents will play with the system in order to get a good ranking. Some would reply, let's then get rid of these search engines and let's create autonomous agents that will travel the web to collect relevant documents. No problems, How long will it take for such agent to cover enough of the web to collect significant documents. What are your guaranties that all links will honestly report (by will or simply by error) their relationship with other documents to your agent? Your agent travel agenda may be dependent on these relationship types.... Hummm, definitively, the semantic web is not a simple affair... As some of our social problems are rooted in our nature or prehistoric times, some problems which could potentially be a plague to the semantic web are rooted in today's web. Cheers Didier PH Martin Note: For those of us not knowing what conceptual graphs are go to http://www.hum.auc.dk/cg for an online course on the subject.
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