A method and system is provided for calculating importance of documents
based on transition probabilities from a source document to a target
document based on looking ahead to information content of target
documents of the source document. A look-ahead importance system
generates transition probabilities of transitioning between any pair of
source and target documents based on analysis of links to target
documents of the source document. The system may calculate the transition
probabilities based on the number of links on documents a look-ahead
distance away. The system then solves for the stationary probabilities of
the transition probabilities. The stationary probabilities represent the
importance of the documents.