- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com>
- Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:06:19 -0700
- To: www-tag@w3.org
[URI aliases, 2.3.1] URI aliases are harmful when they cause bifurcation in the web of related resources. A corollary of Metcalfe's Principle (the "Network Effect") is that the value of a given resource can be measured by the number and value of other resources that link to it (the network neighborhood of the measured resource). This type of valuation is commonly used to rank the relative value of search results (e.g., Google) because people tend to create links relating a given topic to those resources that they feel best reflect that topic, and hence the number of inbound references are a reflection of the degree to which the community values a resource. The problem with aliases is that if half of the neighborhood points to one URI for a given resource, and the other half points to a second, different URI for that same resource, the neighborhood graph splits (bifurcates). The aliased resource is not the only one undervalued because of this split: the entire neighborhood of resources become undervalued due to the missing second-order relationships that should have existed among the referring resources by virtue of their references to the aliased resource. [note, aliases are also in 2.2 for some reason unknown] ....Roy
Received on Tuesday, 10 August 2004 19:06:21 UTC