Monte Carlo Methods in PageRank Computation: When One Iteration is Sufficient

  • Authors:
  • K. Avrachenkov;N. Litvak;D. Nemirovsky;N. Osipova

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

PageRank is one of the principle criteria according to which Google ranks Web pages. PageRank can be interpreted as a frequency of visiting a Web page by a random surfer, and thus it reflects the popularity of a Web page. Google computes the PageRank using the power iteration method, which requires about one week of intensive computations. In the present work we propose and analyze Monte Carlo-type methods for the PageRank computation. There are several advantages of the probabilistic Monte Carlo methods over the deterministic power iteration method: Monte Carlo methods already provide good estimation of the PageRank for relatively important pages after one iteration; Monte Carlo methods have natural parallel implementation; and finally, Monte Carlo methods allow one to perform continuous update of the PageRank as the structure of the Web changes.