Eur. Phys. J. B (2013) 86: 492
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-40432-5

Regular Article

Time evolution of Wikipedia network ranking

¹ Laboratoire de Physique Théorique du CNRS, IRSAMC, Université de Toulouse, UPS, 31062 Toulouse, France
² Informatics Laboratory, Institute for Computer Science and Control, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZTAKI), Pf. 63, 1518 Budapest, Hungary

^a e-mail: dima@irsamc.ups-tlse.fr

Received: 24 April 2013
Received in final form: 4 September 2013
Published online: 2 December 2013

Abstract

We study the time evolution of ranking and spectral properties of the Google matrix of English Wikipedia hyperlink network during years 2003–2011. The statistical properties of ranking of Wikipedia articles via PageRank and CheiRank probabilities, as well as the matrix spectrum, are shown to be stabilized for 2007–2011. A special emphasis is done on ranking of Wikipedia personalities and universities. We show that PageRank selection is dominated by politicians while 2DRank, which combines PageRank and CheiRank, gives more accent on personalities of arts. The Wikipedia PageRank of universities recovers 80% of top universities of Shanghai ranking during the considered time period.