Co-citations and co-sitations: A cautionary view on an analogy

Camille Claverie Prime (1) , Elise Bassecoulard (2) , Michel Zitt (2)

1 URSIDOC - Unité de Recherche en Sciences de l'Information et du document
2 LERECO CEDRAN - Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherches en Economie

Like the citation network of scientific publications, the Web is also a graph where pages are connected together by hypertext links or “sitations”. In the new research field Webometrics, scholars have investigated equivalencies between citationist concepts established in bibliometrics and hyperlinks networks. This paper focuses on the possible analogy between co-citation and co-sitation to structure Web universes. It reports an experiment in the field of bibliometrics and scientific indicators. Several technical aspects that must be dealt with are reviewed. Co-sitation seems a promising way to delineate topics on the Web. However, the analogy with traditional co-citation is deeply misleading: many precautions must be taken in the interpretation of the results.

Mots clés: web graph; Automatic classification; Cluster; Citation analysis; Cocitation analysis; Web site; Webometrics; Bibliometric analysis

Domaines: Sciences de l'information et de la communication

Camille Claverie Prime, Elise Bassecoulard, Michel Zitt. Co-citations and co-sitations: A cautionary view on an analogy. Scientometrics, 2002, 54 (2), pp.291 - 308. ⟨10.1023/A:1016022214005⟩. ⟨halshs-01517430⟩