The effect of links on networked user engagement

Elad Yom-Tov, Mounia Lalmas, Georges Dupret, Ricardo A. Baeza-Yates, Pinar Donmez, Janette Lehmann

Abstract: In the online world, user engagement refers to the phenomena associated with being captivated by a web application and wanting to use it longer and frequently. Nowadays, many providers operate multiple content sites, very different from each other. Due to their extremely varied content, these are usually studied and optimized separately. However, user engagement should be examined not only within individual sites, but also across sites, that is the entire content provider network. In previous work, we investigated networked user engagement, by defining a global measure of engagement that captures the effect that sites have on the engagement on other sites within the same browsing session. Here, we look at the effect of links on networked user engagement, as these are commonly used by online content providers to increase user engagement.