Site co-link analysis applied to small networks: a new methodological approach

The method of co-link was proposed in 1996 and since then it has been applied in many Webometric studies. Its definition refers to “page co-link analysis”, as links are provided by URLs or pages. This paper presents a new methodological approach, a “site co-link analysis”, to investigate relations in small networks. The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation institutes were used as a case study. The results indicate that the number of co-links provided by sites led to an increase of 133% in the sample analyzed. In a cluster analysis, three clusters were formed mainly for thematic reasons and four institutes remained isolated.