The effect of new links on Google Pagerank

PageRank is one of the principle criteria according to which Google ranks Web pages. PageRank can be interpreted as the frequency that a random surfer visits a Web page, and thus it reflects the popularity of a Web page. We study the effect of newly created links on Google PageRank. We discuss to what extent a page can control its PageRank. Using asymptotic analysis we provide simple conditions that show whether or not new links result in increased PageRank for a Web page and its neighbors. Furthermore, we show that there exists an optimal (although impractical) linking strategy. We conclude that a Web page benefits from links inside its Web community and on the other hand irrelevant links penalize the Web pages and their Web communities