Comment to "Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks" (cond-mat/9910332)

TL;DR

This paper critiques the Barabasi-Albert model for Web networks, showing it predicts correlations not observed in real data, and proposes an alternative growth model aligning better with empirical observations.

Contribution

It challenges the existing scale-free network model by providing empirical Web data and introduces an alternative model that better explains the age-link relationship.

Findings

Web data shows no correlation between site age and number of links.

The original Barabasi-Albert model predicts a correlation not observed in real Web data.

An alternative growth model better matches the empirical relationship between site age and links.

Abstract

A recent paper "Emergence of scaling in random networks" (cond-mat/9910332) by Barabasi and Albert proposes a growth mechanism to produce a stationary scale free distribution of the number of edges per node in large networks such as the Web. The Barabasi-Albert model predicts that older vertices acquire new edges at the expense of younger ones, giving a strong correlation between the time a vertex is introduced and the number of edges it has. We present data from the Web showing that there is no such correlation and point to an alternative growth model which produces the correct relationship between the age of a site and the number of links it has.