

You’re either aware of another person or you’re not. Non-valued: (Also known as “binary” or “dichotomous”.) Other relationships are more cut-and-dry, and they are either present or absent. If a network is small enough, displaying strong relationships with thicker lines can be informative. Valued: Sometimes the strength of a relationship can be rated on a scale, such as how often communication takes place or how strong a collaborative relationship is. If the YMCA says they are in contact with the Red Cross on a quarterly basis, then the Red Cross would likely say the same about their frequency of contact with the YMCA. Non-directed: These kinds of relationships are depicted with a regular line and are inherently reciprocal. An organization can nominate the work of the city mayor’s office as being highly important to their own work, but the mayor’s office may not even be aware of that particular organization. It can also indicate relationships that are not inherently reciprocal. This can include actual transfers, such as money or patient referrals. Find new patterns of interest (for example, in social networking and marketing and business intelligence).Directed: These kinds of relationships are often depicted with an arrow indicating that something goes from one partner to another.Find anomalies by detecting violated known patterns.Find matches for known patterns of interests between linked objects.Link analysis has three primary purposes: With the data, analysts can find bottlenecks and possible fault areas and are able to patch them up more quickly or even help with network optimization. In networking, link analysis may involve determining the integrity of the connection between each network node by analyzing the data that passes through the physical or virtual links. This information can be very important for search engine optimization, as it allows the analyst to determine whether the search engine is actually able to find and index the website. For example, in the case of a website where all of the links and backlinks that are present must be analyzed, a tool has to sift through all of the HTML codes and various scripts in the page and then follow all the links it finds in order to determine what sort of links are present and whether they are active or dead. Link analysis is literally about analyzing the links between objects, whether they are physical, digital or relational.
