@misc{10481/48892, year = {2009}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10481/48892}, abstract = {Purpose – To extend co-link analysis to Websites of heterogeneous companies belonging to different industries and countries. To cluster companies by industries and compare results from different countries. Design/methodology/approach – Websites of 255 companies that belong to five stock exchange indexes were included in the study. Data on co-links pointing to these Websites were gathered using Yahoo!. Co-link data were analyzed using multidimensional scaling (MDS) to generate MDS maps that would position companies based on their co-link counts. Findings –Comparisons of results across different countries and economies showed the following overall pattern: companies whose businesses are information based tend for form well defined clusters while companies operating on a more traditional business model tend not to form clear groups. A comparison between EU zone and the U.S. suggests that the EU economy is not well integrated yet. Practical implications – Findings from the study suggest the possibility of using co-link analysis to distinguish the information based industries from traditional industries. Originality/value –Extended co-link analysis from a single industry to heterogeneous industries with global and complex business phenomena.}, publisher = {Emerald Publishing}, keywords = {Competitive intelligence}, keywords = {Web data mining}, keywords = {Co-link analysis}, keywords = {Webometrics}, title = {Patterns of Web Linking to Heterogeneous Groups of Companies: The Case of Stock Exchange Indexes}, doi = {10.1108/00012531011034964}, author = {Romero Frías, Esteban and Vaughan, Liwen}, }