BackLink

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A BackLink of page X is a link from somewhere else to page X. A BackLink is either an InternalBackLink or an ExternalBackLink, depending if it originates from the same site as the target or a different site.

In formal terms, a hyperlink (actually, a ForwardLink) H is usually a directed link between two nodes A and B. A back link is the inverse link H from B to A. In a directed graph hypermedium, these are usually explicitly maintained. In an undirected graph, the links are usually paired together implicitly by the underlying medium as some sort of bidirectional link.

A good BackLink generator should also list back links via PageRedirects and NearLinks.

Re: [Backlinks and Annotations]

neat article, thanks. I assume "dazzle" is PaulMillar?

I feel that most of the technologies mentioned in the article are solved with Wiki. With Wiki, you have annotation possible on every page already. As you pointed out, annotation makes the need for BackLinks less pressing (since once one person stumbles upon two pages relevant to each other, they can connect them), although BackLinks are still good.

This is one reason why I think AnnotationWiki will be so cool once it gets going. It will let people apply the advantages of wiki to an arbitrary page on the web (by associating a wiki page to a web page whenever desired). I envision a system where you "subscribe" to certain AnnotationWikis and then see only annotations published by those AnnotationWikis.

I think that between this, adding moderation stuff to wiki, and syndication, you will be able to use wiki as a framework for filtering/choosing between large numbers of possible sources of information (most importantly to me, the daily news; which stories do you read, and then where to you go to get more information or the other point of view?). So, you use a ChangeAggregator with RatingGroups to decide which stories to read. Then you will see annotations on those stories that direct you to other relevant stories if you want more info or an opposing point of view. These annotations themselves will be rated via RatingGroups, allowing you to select certain types of annotations (i.e. "only show me annotations that point out major errors in the page" vs "show me all comments on this news story on MeatBall").

The IRC + web page thing where you could comment in real time to other users isn't on any WikiEngine yet to my knowledge; although I bet it will be sometime (I think there is free DiscussionBoard? software that does this).

Backlinks are very important to search engines. They see it as a vote from another website. But not just any backlink you want backlinks with good pageranks and relevant content [The Importance of Backlinks]

-- BayleShanks

Yes, dazzle is PaulMillar. Glad you liked the article.

Sounds similar to ideas I've been having of late. I can envisage some websites in the 'future' (examples being [Google] and the [BBC News] site) which will act more like ContentProviders? rather than actual websites themselves - TransparentServices? - then people would syndicate their content on websites and have a rating system (a bit like the FuzzyCommunity rating system or RatingAsContent) where you could rate the content but also rate whether you agree/disagree with the article, or think the website is good or bad. So then you could get quality and content WebAnnotations and 'votes'. A bit like DeCentralized? sources gathered together in a central place - the next step up for portals maybe?

-- PaulMillar

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