compute_hits: Compute HITS hub and authority scores using igraph

In pagerankr: Modular Toolkit for PageRank Calculation

Compute HITS hub and authority scores using igraph

Description

Builds a directed graph from a processed edge list and computes Kleinberg's HITS hub and authority scores using 'igraph::hits_scores()' (the non-deprecated successor of 'igraph::hub_score()' / 'igraph::authority_score()'). This is the low-level computational core; the high-level [hits()] wrapper runs the URL-cleaning, redirect/canonical folding, domain filtering, deduplication, and isolate handling identity pipeline first.

Usage

compute_hits(
  edge_list_df,
  vertices_df = NULL,
  from_col = "from",
  to_col = "to",
  vertex_col_name = "node_name",
  weight_col = NULL,
  weight_validation = c("error", "warning", "none"),
  scale = TRUE,
  pr_node_col = "node_name",
  hub_col = "hub",
  authority_col = "authority",
  ...
)

Arguments

edge_list_df	A data frame representing the processed edge list, with source/target columns (see 'from_col', 'to_col'). NAs in those columns are omitted before graph construction.
vertices_df	An optional single-column data frame of node names defining the vertex set (e.g. to retain isolates). If 'NULL' (default), the vertices are inferred from 'edge_list_df'. The column name is given by 'vertex_col_name'.
from_col, to_col	Names of the source/target columns in 'edge_list_df'. Defaults '"from"' / '"to"'.
vertex_col_name	Name of the node column in 'vertices_df'. Default '"node_name"'.
weight_col	Optional name of a numeric edge-weight column. Higher weights give an edge more influence in the hub/authority mutual reinforcement. If 'NULL' (default), the graph is unweighted.
weight_validation	How invalid edge weights are handled when 'weight_col' is supplied: '"error"' (default), '"warning"', or '"none"'. See [validate_edge_weights()].
scale	Logical, passed to 'igraph::hits_scores()'. When 'TRUE' (default) each score vector is scaled so its maximum entry is '1', the conventional HITS reporting convention. When 'FALSE' the raw principal eigenvectors (unit Euclidean norm) are returned.
pr_node_col	Name for the node column in the output. Default '"node_name"' (kept consistent with [compute_pagerank()]).
hub_col, authority_col	Names for the hub and authority score columns in the output. Defaults '"hub"' / '"authority"'.
...	Additional arguments passed to 'igraph::hits_scores()' (e.g. 'options').

Details

## Matrix formulation

Let A be the adjacency matrix of the directed graph (A_{ij} = 1 when page i links to page j, or the edge weight when weighted). HITS computes two mutually reinforcing scores as the dominant eigenvectors:

• **authority** is the dominant eigenvector of A^\top A: a page is a good authority when it is pointed to by good hubs.

• **hub** is the dominant eigenvector of A A^\top: a page is a good hub when it points to good authorities.

'igraph::hits_scores()' solves these eigenproblems directly, so no separate direction flip is needed: authority is the inflow-oriented score and hub is the outflow-oriented score, both returned from a single call.

Value

A data frame with three columns: the node name (named by 'pr_node_col') and the hub and authority scores (named by 'hub_col' / 'authority_col'). Returns an empty (zero-row) data frame with those columns when the graph has no vertices.

See Also

[hits()] for the full identity pipeline; [compute_pagerank()] for the PageRank analog.

Examples

edges <- data.frame(
  from = c("A", "A", "B"), to = c("B", "C", "C")
)
compute_hits(edges)

# Retain an isolate via vertices_df (scores 0 for both hub and authority)
verts <- data.frame(node_name = c("A", "B", "C", "D"))
compute_hits(edges, vertices_df = verts)

pagerankr documentation built on Oct. 1, 2026, 5:09 p.m.