Globalization or Decentralization of Hyperlinked Content among Websites: An Examination of Website Co-citations

Hyperlink network analysis has provided an important framework for understanding the structure of the Internet/WWW. However, the inclusion of other measures provides additional information about the structure of the web. This research presents still another approach to describe the structure of the Internet/WWW by assessing the network of websites´ domains based on their co-citations with other websites. Results indicate that a group of websites from the United States is at the network´s center. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, and Blogspot had the greatest degree centralities. Google was highest in betweenness centrality. A cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups of websites, American, Chinese and pornographic. Future research should assess content type and language´s role in network structure.