**1. Introduction**

According to the definition by Björneborn and Ingwersen [1, 2], webometrics represents a joint (synergy) activity, i.e., application of other two approaches in one element known as bibliometrics and informetrics, for researching of the web, its information resources, structure, and technologies.

The name "webometrics" was defined in 1997, and it was created and established by Tomas Almind and Peter Ingwersen with an intention to show that informetric analysis can be applied to the web as an important source for measuring values (weight/sense) of documents and information [3]. They suggested several specific informetric parameters such as hyperlinks per website and sensitivity of links on websites distributed via types of documents and names of domains. Björneborn and Ingwersen [1] defined webometrics as "The study of the quantitative aspects of the construction and use of information resources, structures and technologies on the Web, drawing on bibliometrics and informetrics approach*.*" One developed a detailed topology of links, a diagram of nodes on the web, and additional

terminology [4]. The area of activity and what webometrics includes may, in a wider sense, be characterized as (a) website content analysis, (b) web technology analysis, (c) web usage analysis, and web link structure analysis. Researches in this field imply creation of new discoveries based on analyses of numbers and types of hyperlinks, structure of the World Wide Web, and patterns of usage of the web as a mass communication medium and exchange of information.

Another definition of webometrics was given by *Mike Thelwall* in 2004, "… the study of web-based content with primarily quantitative methods for social science research goals using techniques that are not specific to one field of study," which underlines development of applied methods for usage in a wider scope of social sciences. The purpose of this alternative definition was not to replace the primary definition within Information Science [5] but to support publishing of appropriate methods out of the scope of the Information Science.

After these events, Ingwersen represented Web Impact Factor (WIF) [6] in 1998, which represented a key metrics to measure and analyze hyperlinks of websites.

Basically, WIF measure may be defined as a number of sites of a certain web host (website) or portals referred to by links from other websites or web hosts, divided with the number of shared/published websites on that web host which are available to the web/web robots.

Namely, it was logical to assume that areas of great interest would attract more sequential links than average. The greatest advantage of WIF, in which logic was inherited from significance of quoting within an impact factor of a journal, was that it was easy to calculate with the application of advanced inquiries of a browser represented by AltaVista, a leading commercial search engine of that time.

However, usage of WIF measure was neglected after comprehensive analyses and obtained results, due to mathematical artifacts obtained from mathematical law, i.e., due to *power law distributions* of these variables. Other similar indicators which applied a size of an institution instead of a number of websites showed as much more useful for the purpose of analyses.

Subsequently, analyses of links were more directed toward analyses of influence of links and analyses of net connectedness of links, taking into consideration quantity of links as a reflection of productivity of researching within academic and scientific space.

Webometrics gradually evolved and became a great coherent field within the Information Science, at least from bibliometric perspective [7, 8], including analyses of links, web quotations, and a range of other web-based quantitative techniques.

Hyperlinks on websites are structured similarly like quotations in academic (scientific) journals since they guide from a source document to the final document. Similarity of links and quotations, together with the fact that universities were among the first ones which massively started applying advantages of the web, resulted in the appearance of numerous important naturally imposed research objectives. Such sequence of events imposed the question whether it was possible to use hyperlinks in a similar way as academic quotations or quotes in journals and articles, the question of validity of usage of a number of links and data obtained by AltaVista browser in the research and the best way to count links [9]. Simultaneously with these analyses of links, other researchers from the field of Information Science researched reliability and coverage of an area of browsing by browsers and change in contents of the web itself or individual collections of websites [10]. These three types of researches related to measuring the web are all together called webometrics.

**21**

into the following segments:

*Advantages and Disadvantages of the Webometrics Ranking System*

Among other things, webometrics has become a useful methodology in many

Webometrics methodology includes analyses of links, analyses of web quotations, evaluations of results of browsing via web browsers, as well as some basic

The web is of great importance as a communication medium, i.e., a platform for placing and archiving a wide spectrum of documents. A significant number of repositories of various kinds of documents are related to the academic society, and therefore application of this methodology in general ranking of a current situation in the academic field is more significant. Because of this huge and easily accessible source of information, unlimited possibilities for measuring or counting contents of the web turned up in a wide range (e.g., a number of web hosts or a number of websites) or in a narrower range (e.g., a number of web locations in a state, a number of

Although the terms "Internet" and "web" are usually treated as synonyms, they are not the same. Namely, the "Internet" represents a global network of computers which can share information, while the term "web" specifically refers to a group of interrelated documents available for review and downloading using HTTP [14]. For an analysis of the system of ranking of universities, Webometrics Ranking, the most important parts of webometrics methodology would be link analysis and web browser analysis, i.e., a survey of ways in which relevant information that are used in the ranking process of universities according to the Webometrics ranking

Link analysis is a quantitative study of hyperlinks among websites [15]. Similar to a mechanism of counting of quoted works in journals and articles, the importance of websites can be evaluated with links and their analysis. As previously mentioned, the importance or influence of a website on the Internet is defined as Web Impact Factor [5], which, obviously, is similar to the concept of an impact

The idea behind the link analysis is that one can practically assume that a number of links pointing to (guiding toward another location) the academic space of a web content can be proportional to productivity of a research of an organization at the level of a university [9], departments [16], research groups [17], or individual researches [18]. Calculation of WIF [19] can be obtained as a logic amount of a number of links, i.e., external or incoming links (*inlinks*) toward a website divided by a number of sites of a certain web host in a certain moment of time. Further information regard-

Web tools such as search engines, web crawlers, and webometrics software which are used for collecting data from the web are called *Webometrics tools* [5].

The area of research in the field of webometrics can, in a wider sense, be divided

other fields, such as creation of ranking of universities in the world based on webometrics [11, 12], for scientometric evaluations or researches in some scientific

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87207*

**2. Webometrics methodology**

descriptive studies and analyses of the web [15].

web pages on a website of a university).

methodology may be obtained.

factor of a journal (*Journal Impact Factor, JIF*).

ing the calculation of WIF is to be looked for in the work [6, 19].

**2.2 Webometrics tools for collection of data from the Internet**

**2.1 Link analysis**

fields [13].

Among other things, webometrics has become a useful methodology in many other fields, such as creation of ranking of universities in the world based on webometrics [11, 12], for scientometric evaluations or researches in some scientific fields [13].
