A Method to Estimate Object Existence Based on Temporal Analysis of Web Pages for Digital Map Credibility

Digital maps are widely used these days. However, they often display geographical objects that are no longer present or do not display newly created geographical objects because the various map suppliers update their maps at different times. In other words, map media contain wrong information. Users who believe that a digital map contains accurate information may encounter problems when going somewhere using an incorrect digital map. We propose a calculation method to determine the degree of existence of an object for geographical objects displayed on digital maps in order to establish a map´s credibility. Specifically, we first extract temporal Web pages from Web archives by searching for each geographical object as query. Next, we calculate the degree of existential support using the update history of extracted temporal Web pages. Finally, we calculate the degree of existence of an object based on all degrees of support. We display map content with a valid object to establish map credibility.