Linksthat

Linksthat is a conceptual model for organizing hyperlinks to reveal the structure of linked documents. It treats each hyperlink as a data item that can be annotated with relationship type, provenance, and contextual information, enabling analysis of how pages reference one another within a site or across the web.

In a linksthat system, every link record includes a source (the page containing the hyperlink), a target (the destination), a relation type (for example, related, cited, navigational, or annotation), and optional metadata such as anchor text, author, timestamp, and context snippet. The collection of such records forms a directed graph, where pages are nodes and links are edges. Data can be stored in graph databases or serialized as RDF, JSON-LD, or other structured formats.

Applications include improving navigation and search, enabling content recommendations, aiding digital humanities research, and supporting knowledge graphs in organizations. Linksthat data can be generated by automated crawlers, editor-contributed annotations, or user behavior signals.

Challenges include handling dynamic content, ensuring link integrity, privacy concerns, and standardization of relation types. Interoperability relies on agreed vocabularies and schemas.

See also: hyperlink, URL, sitemap, graph database, RDF, anchor text, knowledge graph.