The way in which a network is connected plays a large part into how networks are analyzed and interpreted. Networks are classified in four different categories:
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* ''Clique''/''Complete Graph'': a completely connected network, where all nodes are connected to every other node. These networks are symmetric in that all nodes have in-links and out-links from all others.
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* ''Giant Component'': A single connected component which contains most of the nodes in the network.
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* ''Weakly Connected Component'': A collection of nodes in which there exists a path from any node to any other, ignoring directionality of the edges.
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* ''Strongly Connected Component'': A collection of nodes in which there exists a ''directed'' path from any node to any other.