Researchers led by Young-Ho Eom at the University of Toulouse used links between Wikipedia articles to examine the prominence of historical figures across 24 language editions. Their study found that the most prominent figures tended to be men born in Western countries after the 17th century. Each language edition also tended to give particular attention to local figures, reflecting connections within a shared culture.

The rankings varied according to the method used. An approach based on Google’s PageRank algorithm, which measures the importance of incoming links, placed Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus first across the language editions. Linnaeus devised the system for naming organisms, and the result was strongly influenced by the many Wikipedia species articles that link to him. A separate earlier study that measured academic influence through references had ranked Karl Marx first.

Eom’s team also considered outgoing links through a measure called CheiRank and combined it with PageRank to produce a third measure, 2DRank. Under that approach, Frank Sinatra ranked first in the English-language edition, followed by Michael Jackson and Pope Pius XII. Across all 24 editions, Adolf Hitler ranked first, followed by Jackson and Madonna. The differing results illustrate how link patterns and the choice of method can shape assessments of importance.

Separately, the Internet Archive is working to preserve webpages and the pages they reference. Its crawls aim to retain versions of linked pages as they existed when an article was written. The archive hopes these copies can replace broken links or appear alongside live links, allowing readers to see the material authors originally referenced. The effort supports the broader goal of addressing broken links across the web.