We prove that HITS, to "get right" h of the top k ranked nodes of an N>=2k node graph, can require h^(Omega(N h/k)) iterations (i.e. a substantial Omega(N h log(h)/k) matrix multiplications even with a "squaring trick"). Our proof requires no algebraic tools and is entirely self-contained.
@article{arxiv.0807.3006,
title = {The rank convergence of HITS can be slow},
author = {Enoch Peserico and Luca Pretto},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0807.3006},
year = {2008}
}