The document summarizes a study analyzing patterns of co-inlinking between municipal websites in Finland. The study found that co-inlinking between municipalities followed geographic patterns, with municipalities in the same functional regions co-inlinking more frequently than those in different regions. Motivations for co-inlinking were mainly to show connections between sites and geographic areas. The analysis indicates co-inlinking can indirectly map cooperation between municipalities.

1. ISSI conference, 15 July, 2009, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil Co-inlinking to a municipal Web space: A webometric and content analysis Kim Holmberg Department of Information Studies Åbo Akademi University (e) kim.holmberg@abo.fi (w3) www.kimholmberg.fi

2. C Co-inlinking (colinked (Björneborn, 2004)) Interlinking Co-outlinking (co-linking (Björneborn, 2004)) A B D 2 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

3. Municipalities and the functional regions in the Region of Finland Proper 3 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

4. Research questions Does co-inlinking to local government Web sites follow geographic patterns? Are municipal Web sites in the same functional regions co-inlinked together more frequently than with municipalities in other functional regions? What are the motivations to create co-inlinks to municipal Web sites? 4 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

5. Methods Data collection 1,431 queries submitted to MSN/Live Search/Bing using LexiURL Searcher (http://lexiurl.wlv.ac.uk/) About 78,000 pages with co-inlinks retrieved 5 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

6. Methods Comparison with neighboring connections - QAP - Precision / Recall Block Density Matrix of co-inlinking connections within the functional regions Classification of linking motivations 6 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

7. Results Maximum number of co-inlinking connections: 1,005 Minimum number of co-inlinking connections: 7 Average number of co-inlinking connections: 54 Cut-off level in the data conversion: 54 co-inlinks 7 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

8. Figure 1. Co-inlinking in the region of Finland Proper 8 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

9. Results Co-inlinking matrix 670 connections (density: 23.4%) Geographic matrix 316 connections (density: 11%) QAP Simple match: 80.5% (p<0.000) 9 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

10. Figure 1. Co-inlinking in the region of Finland Proper 10 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

11. Figure 2. Co-inlinking that matches neighborhood 11 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

12. Co-inlinking matrix combined with geography 214 matching connections (density: 7.5%) 456 unmatched co-inlinks Precision (=M11): 67.7% Recall (=M10): 32.0% 12 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

13. Co-inlinking within the functional regions 422 connections (63%) between municipalities in same functional regions 248 connections (37%) between municipalities in different functional regions 13 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

14. Table 1. Block density matrix Table 1. The percentage of co-inlinking out of all possible co-inlinking within and between the functional regions 14 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

15. Co-inlinking motivations Content analysis The co-inlinkins in link lists: 87.4% Municipalities in same geographic region: 60% Homepages as target pages: 68.9% Limitation Single classifier 15 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

16. Research questions Does co-inlinking to local government Web sites follow geographic patterns? Yes, QAP indicates a trend and the precision/recall approach confirms it, although the recall of the match between co-inlinking ang neighboring patterns was quite low 16 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

17. Research questions Are municipal Web sites in the same functional regions co-inlinked together more frequently than with municipalities in other functional regions? Yes, 63% of the connections were within the functional regions and in some cases almost all of the possible connections within a functional region were present 17 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

18. Research questions What are the motivations to create co-inlinks to municipal Web sites? The main motivation to co-inlink to the studied municipalities was for the source site to show a connection with the geographic area the municipalities were in 18 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

19. Conclusions Although co-inlinking was shown to be a measure of similarity, geographic similarity, because the functional regions are formed based on cooperation and commuting for work, we have indirectly been able to use co-inlinking to map cooperation between the municipalities. 19 Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi

20. Obrigado Kim Holmberg :: kim.holmberg@abo.fi :: www.kimholmberg.fi