METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FINDING RELATED DOCUMENTS IN A COLLECTION OF LINKED DOCUMENTS USING A BIBLIOGRAPHIC COUPLING LINK ANALYSIS

A method and apparatus for identifying related documents in a collection of linked documents. In the method the link structure of documents to other documents are analyzed. By analyzing only the link structure, a process intensive content analysis of the documents is avoided. A citation analysis technique, such as bibliographic coupling analysis, is performed on the set of documents to extract link information. For bibliographic coupling analysis that information would include the number of other documents that a given pair of documents link to. By using the link information, related documents are identified using a suitable analysis technique, such as clustering or spreading activation.