CZ:PageRank analysis of Citizendium articles

Further information: see Search engine optimization

PageRank analysis of Citizendium articles was done in March 2010 to try to understand why some Citizendium articles appeared earlier in Google searches than other articles. PageRank is a Google term which describes how likely a given web page is to appear on a search engine results page or SERP; a page rank of "10/10" means the it will appear first, while a page rank of "0/10" means it is highly unlikely that a given web site will appear at all. A number of variables were studied (see wikitable below). The major finding was that articles with plenty of inbound links tended to have higher PageRanks. Articles with fewer inbound links tended to be more obscure. PageRank also correlates with articles written earlier, but older articles are more likely to have other articles linking to them. While internal links explains some of the PageRank results, it doesn't explain everything; it is believed that other variables, such as the uniqueness of an article title, how recently the page was "crawled" using a Google crawler, and number and strength of external links is a factor. Overall, Citizendium's main page has a PageRank of "5/10"; Wikipedia's main page has a PageRank of 8/10; and Amazon has a PageRank of 9/10.

PageRank Analysis Table

Double click the triangle button first in the "What links here" column to organize this column numerically. Next, double-click the triangle button in the Google PageRank column. Higher PageRank numbers correspond to articles with greater numbers of internal wikilinks.

CZ article title	Date created (YYYYDD)	Google PageRank (as per this tool) 10/10=BEST 0/10=totally obscure	# CZ articles "What links here" (est)	Number of CZ revisions	Approved (a) or Draft (d)?	# CZ contributors (estimate)	Notes
Terrorism	200712	3/10	500	8	a	3
Lucille Ball	200812	0/10	13	4	d	3
Script kiddie	201002	0/10	9		d
Dana Delany	201002	0/10	1	2	d
Lady Gaga	201002	0/10	20	13	d	4
Bromance	201003	0/10	13	6	d	1
Albert Einstein	200611	3/10	180	42	d	17
Restructuring of the United States Army	200807	2/10	175	54	d	5
Solid harmonics	200708	0/10	29	22	d	3
Plane (geometry)	200703	0/10	35	16	d	9
Gaussian elimination	200905	0/10	9	8	d	2
Linear algebra	200811	2/10	35	2	d	1
Cloud computing	200807	2/10	50	117	d	6	CZ really first; three ads for CC came up first
Horticulture	200612	2/10	35	13	d	7	"CZ: workgroup requests" ranks 2nd
Business	200707	0/10	112	18	d	3	"CZ:Business Workgroup" was 2nd; the business article was 3rd -
Truth	200805	2/10	35	11	d	5	Jacques Derrida, and Aesthetics came up #2 and #3
Anthropology	200707	4/10	370	41	d	10	CZ:anthropology workgroup came up #9
Applied social sciences	200803	2/10	28	15	d	6	Anthro:catalogs 3/10 biblio 3/10 rel art 3/10
Henry Ford	200704	3/10	45	41	d	10	HF's external links, and bibliography were #2 and #3
Nobel Prize	200810	3/10	140	9	d	4
Norway	200705	0/10	135	56	d	4	The Norway "Gallery" came up 1st; a collection of images about Norway.
Great Britain	200704	3/10	150	39	d	6
United Kingdom	200611	0/10	1000	163	d	22	What came first? "Parliament of the United Kingdom - encyclopedia article - Citizendium" Why? "Catalogs" came 3rd.
Scottish Parliament	200801	2/10	39	12	d	4
Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse	200805	0/10	16	7	d	2	First: Royal Mile article on CZ; second: Edinburgh (external links); third: Scottish Parliament; 4th = RP of H (related articles)
Arthur's Seat	200801	0/10	19	6	d	4	Scottish Parliament article #2; Royal Mile article #3; Arthur's Seat external links comes #7
Photosynthesis	200808	2/10	90	108	d	6	Photosynthesis "Gallery" comes #2
Handyman	201002	0/10	12	24	d	2	CZ's Cottage industry comes 1st; Tool related articles comes #5
Guitar	200810	0/10	125	10	d	7
Hierarchical clustering	200911	0/10	10	7	d	2	CZ article "Bioinformatics - encyclopedia article - Citizendium" comes 1st; the talk page of Hc comes about 8th.
Human	200710	4/10	380	9	d	6
Chimpanzee	200802	3/10	44	35	d	7
Money	200706	3/10	40	12	d	5	"Money supply" on CZ came up first, "Monetarism" came up 2nd
Money supply	200811	3/10	50	11	d	2
Brain morphometry	200804	2/10	50	100	d	3
Gyrification	200804	3/10	90	100	d	2
Cortical thickness	200804	2/10	50	20	d	2
Neuroimaging	200811	4/10	150	20	d	4
Music perception	200806	4/10	50	11	d	6
Open access	200611	0/10	50	20	d	9
Open science	201002	0/10	20	3	d	1
Spherical harmonics	200708	2/10	50	100	d	5
Biology	200610	4/10	1000	700	a	5
Life	200612	4/10	150	1500	a	5	First is Life/Signed_Articles/John_Whitfield

Notes

The variable "what links here" was obtained by clicking on the box on the left hand column by that name when looking at a particular article. Rough counts were made.

This data was obtained in March 2010. As Citizendium grows, the numbers will change.