Definition: Hilltop algorithm

The Hilltop algorithm is a link analysis algorithm used in search engine optimization to determine the quality of web pages and the importance of their links. It was developed in 2001 by Krishna Bharat and Andrei Broder of the AltaVista search engine team. The Hilltop algorithm uses a set of “expert” or “seed” pages, selected for their relevance and importance, to evaluate the quality of other pages on the web. The algorithm determines the quality of a page based on the number of links from the expert pages to that page, as well as the quality of the linking pages themselves. This information is then used to rank pages in search results, with pages that receive more links from high-quality expert pages being ranked higher. The Hilltop algorithm is considered one of the first link analysis algorithms used in search engines and has been widely cited in the field of information retrieval