Web-site analysis system

• US 20030130982A1
• Filed: 04/22/2002
• Published: 07/10/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digital River Incorporated (Danube Private Holdings II, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Digital River Incorporated (Danube Private Holdings II, LLC)
• Inventors: Kasriel, Stephane, Mann, Walter, Swanson, Sara
• Granted Patent: US 6,963,874 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A data collection system collects statistics related to each visit to each web-page within a web-site. In addition to collecting path information related to traversals to and from each web-page, the system collects information regarding the particular session, such as the visitor'"'"'s connection speed, the time required to download the web-page to the visitor'"'"'s system, the duration of time that the visitor spent at the page, whether the user clicked the ‘back’ button to leave the site, and so on. The data reporting system presents statistics based on the collected data in an easy-to-use and easy-to-understand form that is customizable by the user. By collecting and reporting performance factors related to each web-page, or sets of web-pages within a web-site, marketers and webmasters can address any perceived deficiencies and/or can optimize the performance of select pages to achieve specific marketing objectives. To optimize performance and minimize storage requirements, the data collection system uses a two-stage storage architecture. Data is collected in one or more registers in a sequential fashion, and transferred to a database periodically.

Claims

1. A web-site analysis system comprising:

one or more registers that are configured to contain data relative to visits to a plurality of web-pages that are associated with a web-site,

a modifier, operably coupled to the one or more registers, that is configured to modify the data in an active register of the one or more registers, based on transactions during the visits, and

a database, operably coupled to the one or more registers,

wherein

the web-site analysis system is configured to periodically;

transfer the data from a register of the one or more registers to the database, and reset the active register.

2. The web-site analysis system of claim 1, wherein

the one or more registers are arranged in a sequential order, and

the web-site analysis system is further configured to

adjust at least one of the modifier and the one or more registers when the data is transferred to the database, so that the data in each of the one or more registers corresponds to a sequentially successive time unit, and the active register corresponds to a current time unit.

3. The web-site analysis system of claim 1, wherein

each of the one or more registers include:

a plurality of counters that are configured to record a histogram of the transactions.

4. The web-site analysis system of claim 3, wherein

the plurality of counters are arranged such that a traversal from a first web-page of the plurality of web-pages to a second web-page of the plurality of web-pages effects a decrement of a first counter of the plurality of counters, and an increment of a second counter of the plurality of counters.

5. The web-site analysis system of claim 1, wherein

each of the one or more registers include:

a plurality of parameter arrays, each parameter array corresponding to each web-page of the plurality of web-pages.

6. The web-site analysis system of claim 1, further including

a performance analysis system that is configured to access the data in at least one of the database and the one or more registers, to produce therefrom performance measures corresponding to each web-page of the plurality of web-pages, wherein

the data includes:

an identification of traversals corresponding to each visit of the visits to the plurality of web-pages, and

at least one time duration measure corresponding to each visit; and

the identification of traversals include at least one of;

an identification of an incoming link, from which each visit originated, and an identification of an outgoing link, to which the visit terminated.

7. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance measures include at least one of:

a measure of download duration, corresponding to times required to download each web-page of the plurality of web-pages, based on the at least one time duration measure corresponding to each visit, and

a measure of dwell duration, corresponding to time durations of each visit, based on the at least one time duration measure corresponding to each visit.

8. The web-site analysis system of claim 7, wherein

the database is further configured to contain a connection speed associated with the visit, and

the measure of the download duration is further based on the connection speed of the visit.

9. The web-site analysis system of claim 7, wherein

the measure of the download duration includes a plurality of time durations associated with tasks required to effect the download of each web-page.

10. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance analysis system is configured to provide the performance measures relative to at least one of:

a parameter relative to the web-site, and

a parameter relative to each web-page of the plurality of web-pages.

11. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance analysis system is configured to provide the performance measures via a graphic display of each performance measure corresponding to each web-page.

12. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance measures include at least one of:

a measure of entry rate to the web-site via each web-page of the plurality of web-pages, corresponding to the identification of the incoming link from which each visit originated as a web-page that is external from the web-site, and

a measure of exit-rate from the web-site via each web-page of the plurality of web-pages, corresponding to the identification of the outgoing link to which each visit terminated as a web-page that is external from the web-site.

13. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance measures include

a measure of backtracks from each web page of the plurality of web-pages, corresponding to the identification of the outgoing link to which each visit terminated being substantially identical to the identification of the incoming link from which each visit originated.

14. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance measures include

a measure of popularity of each web page of the plurality of web-pages, corresponding to a number of visits to each web page of the plurality of web-pages.

15. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance measures include at least one of:

a measure of depth of each web page of the plurality of web-pages, corresponding to a number of visits to other web pages of the web-site during an access to the web-site that includes a visit to each web page, and

a measure of depth-time of each web page of the plurality of web-pages, corresponding to a time duration of visits to the other web pages of the web-site during an access to the web-site that includes a visit to each web page.

16. The web-site analysis system of claim 15, wherein

the visits to the other web pages correspond to a sequence of visits to effect a checkout procedure.

17. The web-site analysis system of claim 6, wherein

the performance analysis system is further configured to produce performance measures corresponding to the web-site, including at least one of:

numbers of web-pages visited during each access to the web-site,

time durations of each access to the web-site.

18. A method of providing a web-site analysis service, comprising:

storing data related to a plurality of accesses to a web-site in an active register of one or more registers,

each access of the plurality of accesses to the web-site including one or more visits to one or more web-pages corresponding to the web-site, and

periodically;

transferring the data from one of the one or more registers to a database, and

resetting the active register.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein

the data includes an identification of traversals corresponding to each visit,

the traversals including at least one of:

an identification of an incoming web-page, from which the visit commenced, and

an identification of an outgoing web-page, to which the visit terminated,

20. The method of claim 18, wherein

the one or more visits to the one or more web-pages include at least one of:

a first visit to a first page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to an initiation of the access to the web-site, and

a last visit to a last page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to a termination of the access to the web-site, and

the method further including;

reporting performance measures corresponding to the data, including at least one of;

a measure of an entry rate to the web-site via each web-page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to occurrences of the web-page being the first page, and

a measure of an exit rate from the web-site via each web-page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to occurrences of the web-page being the last page.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein

the data includes an identification of traversals corresponding to each visit,

the traversals including at least one of:

an identification of an incoming web-page, from which the visit commenced, and

an identification of an outgoing web-page, to which the visit terminated, and

the performance measures include

a measure of backtracking via each web-page, based on a correspondence between the incoming web-page and the outgoing web-page.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein

the performance measures include a popularity measure of each web-page, based on occurrences of visits to each web-page.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein

the data includes at least one time duration measure corresponding to each visit, and

the performance measures include one or more statistics for each web-page, based on the at least one time duration measure corresponding to each visit.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein

the at least one time duration measure corresponds to at least one of:

a time duration to download the web-page at each visit, and

a time duration of each visit to the web-page.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein

the performance measures include an accumulation of performance measures corresponding to a plurality of web-pages of the one or more web-pages.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein

the performance measures include at least one of:

a measure of depth of each web page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to a number of visits to other web pages of the web-site during an access to the web-site that includes a visit to each web page, and

a measure of depth-time of each web page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to a time duration of visits to the other web pages of the web-site during an access to the web-site that includes a visit to each web page.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein

the visits to the other web pages correspond to a sequence of visits to effect a checkout procedure.

28. The method of claim 20, wherein

the performance analysis system is further configured to produce performance measures corresponding to the web-site, including at least one of:

numbers of web-pages visited during each access to the web-site,

time durations of each access to the web-site.

29. The method of claim 18, wherein

the one or more registers are arranged in a sequential order, and

the method further includes

reordering the one or more registers when the data is transferred to the database, so that the data in each of the one or more registers corresponds to a sequentially successive time unit, and the active register corresponds to a current time unit.

30. The method of claim 18, wherein

each of the one or more registers include a plurality of counters, and

the method further includes

activating one or more counters of the plurality of counters to record a histogram of transactions associate with the one or more visits.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein

activating the one or more counters includes:

decrementing a first counter of the plurality of counters and

incrementing a second counter of the plurality of counters

when the transaction corresponds to a traversal from a first web-page of the plurality of web-pages to a second web-page of the plurality of web-pages.

32. The method of claim 18, wherein

each of the one or more registers include:

a plurality of parameter arrays, each parameter array corresponding to each web-page of the plurality of web-pages.

33. A method of providing a web-site analysis service, comprising:

collecting data related to a plurality of accesses to a web-site,

each access of the plurality of accesses to the web-site including one or more visits to one or more web-pages corresponding to the web-site,

the data including;

an identification of traversals corresponding to each visit,

the traversals including at least one of;

an identification of an incoming web-page, from which the visit commenced, and

an identification of an outgoing web-page, to which the visit terminated; and

at least one time measure corresponding to each visit, and processing the data to provide;

a graphic display corresponding to the traversals among the one or more web-pages, and

a plurality of performance measures for each of the one or more web-pages, at least one of the plurality of performance measures corresponding to the at least one time measure corresponding to each visit.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein

the one or more visits to the one or more web-pages include at least one of:

a first visit to a first page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to an initiation of the access to the web-site, and

a last visit to a last page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to a termination of the access to the web-site, and

the plurality of performance measures include at least one of;

a measure of an entry rate to the web-site via each web-page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to occurrences of the web-page being the first page, and

a measure of an exit rate from the web-site via each web-page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to occurrences of the web-page being the last page.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein

the plurality of performance measures include

a measure of backtracking via each web-page, based on a correspondence between the incoming web-page and the outgoing web-page.

36. The method of claim 33, wherein

the plurality of performance measures include

a popularity measure of each web-page, based on occurrences of visits to each web-page.

37. The method of claim 33, wherein

the at least one time duration measure corresponds to at least one of:

a time duration to download the web-page at each visit, and

a time duration of each visit to the web-page.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein

the time duration to download the web-page includes a plurality of time durations associated with tasks required to effect the download.

39. The method of claim 33, wherein

the plurality of performance measures includes one or more accumulations of performance measures corresponding to a plurality of web-pages of the one or more web-pages.

40. The method of claim 33, wherein

the plurality of performance measures includes at least one of:

a measure of depth of each web page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to a number of visits to other web pages of the web-site during an access to the web-site that includes a visit to each web page, and

a measure of depth-time of each web page of the one or more web-pages, corresponding to a time duration of visits to the other web pages of the web-site during an access to the web-site that includes a visit to each web page.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein

the visits to the other web pages correspond to a sequence of visits to effect a checkout procedure.

42. The method of claim 33, wherein

the performance analysis system is further configured to produce performance measures corresponding to the web-site, including at least one of:

numbers of web-pages visited during each access to the web-site,

time durations of each access to the web-site.