Personalized PageRank Clustering: A graph clustering algorithm based on random walks

•This algorithm employs random walks to accurately and efficiently cluster graphs.•The top-down approach makes it a flexible solution for various clustering requirements.•It is superior to most of the clustering algorithms in accuracy and running time.•Plenty of performance optimizations are used to reduce the running time to linear.

Graph clustering has been an essential part in many methods and thus its accuracy has a significant effect on many applications. In addition, exponential growth of real-world graphs such as social networks, biological networks and electrical circuits demands clustering algorithms with nearly-linear time and space complexity. In this paper we propose Personalized PageRank Clustering (PPC) that employs the inherent cluster exploratory property of random walks to reveal the clusters of a given graph. We combine random walks and modularity to precisely and efficiently reveal the clusters of a graph. PPC is a top-down algorithm so it can reveal inherent clusters of a graph more accurately than other nearly-linear approaches that are mainly bottom-up. It also gives a hierarchy of clusters that is useful in many applications. PPC has a linear time and space complexity and has been superior to most of the available clustering algorithms on many datasets. Furthermore, its top-down approach makes it a flexible solution for clustering problems with different requirements.