Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less | Surprising Science

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There is an estimated 14 billion pages on the internet connected in one way or another through links and clicks. One researcher says most of those links are associated with hyper connected nodes, so that any of those 14 billion pages, including this one, can be reached with a maximum of 19 clicks. Much like the classic game, 16 ways to Kevin Bacon.



"Barabási’s findings, published yesterday in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, involved a simulated model of the web that he created to better understand its structure. He discovered that of the roughly 1 trillion web documents in existence—the aforementioned 14 billion-plus pages, along with every image, video or other file hosted on every single one of them—the vast majority are poorly connected, linked to perhaps just a few other pages or documents.

Distributed across the entire web, though, are a minority of pages—search engines, indexes and aggregators—that are very highly connected and can be used to move from area of the web to another. These nodes serve as the “Kevin Bacons” of the web, allowing users to navigate from most areas to most others in less than 19 clicks.


There is no mention of how many clicks it would take to get to Kevin Bacon.
 Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less | Surprising Science