Link analysis is a subset of network analysis, exploring associations between objects. An example may be examining the addresses of suspects and victims, the telephone numbers they have dialed and financial transactions that they have partaken in during a given timeframe, and the familial relationships between these subjects as a part of police investigation. Link analysis here provides the crucial relationships and associations between very many objects of different types that are not apparent from isolated pieces of information. Computer-assisted or fully automatic computer-based link analysis is increasingly employed by [[bank]]s and [[insurance]] agencies in [[fraud]] detection, by telecommunication operators in telecommunication network analysis, by medical sector in [[epidemiology]] and [[pharmacology]], in law enforcement [[Criminal procedure|investigation]]s, by [[search engine]]s for [[relevance]] rating (and conversely by the [[search engine spammer|spammers]] for [[spamdexing]] and by business owners for [[search engine optimization]]), and everywhere else where relationships between many objects have to be analyzed. | Link analysis is a subset of network analysis, exploring associations between objects. An example may be examining the addresses of suspects and victims, the telephone numbers they have dialed and financial transactions that they have partaken in during a given timeframe, and the familial relationships between these subjects as a part of police investigation. Link analysis here provides the crucial relationships and associations between very many objects of different types that are not apparent from isolated pieces of information. Computer-assisted or fully automatic computer-based link analysis is increasingly employed by [[bank]]s and [[insurance]] agencies in [[fraud]] detection, by telecommunication operators in telecommunication network analysis, by medical sector in [[epidemiology]] and [[pharmacology]], in law enforcement [[Criminal procedure|investigation]]s, by [[search engine]]s for [[relevance]] rating (and conversely by the [[search engine spammer|spammers]] for [[spamdexing]] and by business owners for [[search engine optimization]]), and everywhere else where relationships between many objects have to be analyzed. |