Closeness Centrality

Closeness Centrality

  • Nodes with short geodesic (shortest path between two nodes) distances to other nodes tend to have higher closeness
  • A vertex’s closeness is defined as the inverse of the mean geodesic distance from vertex v to any other vertex in the graph
  • Given the definition of Closeness, a large number of algorithms exist to compute it efficiently.
  • Varying algorithms also rank closeness so no single algorithm works best.

More Information

References to use of this measure in literature:

  1. Gender, Personal Networks, and Drug Use among Rural African Americans