If Historical Figures Had Been Webmasters

June 13, 2006

RightReading applies the science of search engine algorithms to the world of literature and tries to figure out what the page ranks of some historical celebrities might have been. He explains:

As a measure of a page’s popularity, Google assigns it a page rank (PR). Inbound links (IBLs) from pages with high PRs will raise a page’s own rank (the page has, in effect, been graced by the magic touch of a prom king or queen, bestowing a fraction of their popularity upon it). Not surprisingly, this system has been subject to a fair bit of abuse, with avaricious quarterbacks and cheerleaders selling their blessings to viagra and smut peddlers and the like.

And that’s how the celebs would have fared in this system:PR0: Emily DickinsonPR2: ShakespearePR4: Carolus LinneausPR6: Leonardo da VinciPR8: Niccolo MachievelliPR10: The Buddha I especially like the explanations for the PR 10 for The Buddha:

The Buddha’s IBLs would be of the prized kind that Google calls “natural.” And he would have a lot of them, because many of his messages would resonate with the on-line community, such as:- The essence of SEO is suffering- All traffic is transitory- There is a rank beyond page rank- No ban is permanent — all pages get reborn.