The PageRank Algorithm and Web Search Engines
Meeting Time: Apr. 20, 2010, 2:00-2:50pm
Abstract:
A key problem for large search engines is how to select the few best
results from a vast number of somewhat relevant hits. The PageRank
algorithm, developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergy Brin, has
proven to be an extremely powerful tool in this area. In this talk I'll
describe the algorithm and its motivation. The solution of the problem
involves finding an eigenvector of a NxN matrix where N is of the order
of the entire web (10's of billions of pages) and so issues of
computational efficiency are paramount. If time allows, I'll talk about
variants of the algorithm, and issues of stability in the face of a
constantly changing web.