I. Introduction

WARNING -- NERD ZONE AHEAD ... The following note is even nerdier than the original March 2006 edition. So if you're not a nerd, you might want to pass this one by. But even if you are a nerd, if you aren't feeling particularly nerdy at this time, please come back later ... :-)

A. PageRanks

This note is an updated and expanded version of the PageRanks note that the DLL posted in March 2006. As before, this edition examines the PageRanks assigned to the Home Pages of each of the 104 officially designated Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and compares them to the PageRanks of the Home Pages of some other well-known majority institutions of higher learning. To obtain a broader perspective, the PageRanks of prominent organizations in three other information-intensive sectors are also considered.

Google measures the importance of a Web page by its "PageRank", a unique index developed by its founders (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) while they were Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University. But why should anyone care about PageRanks? Primarily because as Herbert Simon, one of the architects of artificial intelligence, so accurately predicted more than forty years ago, we live in an age wherein information is no longer a scarce resource; the increasingly scarce resource of our time is attention. But fortunately, the same Web that has given us a surfeit of data that far exceeds our grasp has also brought forth saviors -- Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, Lycos, etc -- to help us quickly find our quested needles in the rising haystacks. These vital information services tell us what we should look at and, more importantly, what we can safely ignore.

In other words, we should care about Google's PageRanks because Google's current dominance of online search (50% in September 2006) means that for the foreseeable future, most Web users will be aware of the past achievements and future plans of an HBCU according to the level of importance that Google assigns to that HBCU's Web pages.

B. Google's Toolbar and the Meaning of PageRanks

Google's toolbar can be configured to display the PageRank of any Web page. Readers who are not familiar with Google's PageRanks are strongly advised to read the appendices to this note before moving on to the next section.

• Appendix A provide step-by-step instructions for installing Google's toolbar in a browser.
  
  
• Appendix B provides step-by-step instructions for configuring the Google toolbar to display PageRanks.
  
  
• Appendix C provides a non-technical discussion of what Google's PageRanks really mean.

Last updated: Friday 20-Oct-2006 10:02 AM