Method and system for classifying content and prioritizing web site content issues

• US 20040158429A1
• Filed: 02/10/2003
• Published: 08/12/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Horvath, Jozsef, Smith, D. Gordon, Torenvliet, Gerard, Simpson, Kari, Bary, Emad Abdel, Milling, Ruth
• Granted Patent: US 7,624,173 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/183
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A method of analysing a Web page comprising the steps of analysing said Web page and identifying content issues; obtaining traffic data for said Web page; correlating said content issues with said traffic data; and producing a report on said correlated data.

Claims

1. A method of analysing a Web page comprising the steps of:

analysing said Web page and identifying content issues;

obtaining traffic data for said Web page;

correlating said content issues with said traffic data; and

producing a report on said correlated data.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

performing URL normalization of traffic data.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said step of performing URL normalization comprises the step of:

removing session identifiers from URLs in traffic data.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein said step of performing URL normalization comprises the step of:

correlating URLs of mirror sites with corresponding URLs of the main server.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein said step of performing URL normalization comprises the step of:

switching upper case characters in URLs of traffic data to corresponding lower case format.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said content issues are selected from the group consisting of:

broken links, broken anchors, slow pages, missing Alt text, spelling errors, forms, compliance with accessibility guidelines, cookie handling, third-party links and P3P compact policies.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said step of analysing is done in response to parameters set by the Web administrator.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the step of:

querying the Web administrator to input parameters by said analysis.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein said step of producing comprises the step of:

collecting traffic data records within a certain time range thereby allowing the production of historical trend reports.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising the step of:

compiling data for time periods before and after a Web site was changed, allowing the Web administrator to consider the impact of changes.

11. The method of claim 7 wherein said steps of analysing, obtaining, correlating and producing are performed on multiple Web pages within a Web site.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein said step of producing comprises the step of sorting said Web pages in order from greatest number of content issues to least number of content issues.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein said step of producing comprises the step of sorting said Web pages in order from greatest traffic flow to least traffic flow.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein software code for effecting said method comprises an analysis module and a reporting module.

15. The method of claim 11 further comprising the step of identifying Web pages which exceed a certain threshold level for certain content issues.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein said step of identifying content issues further comprises the step of indexing said content issues by Web page.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein said step of correlating comprises the step of correlating said content issues with said traffic by Web page.

18. The method of claim 11 further comprising the step of:

importing traffic data from a remote traffic server.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising the step of:

converting said imported traffic data to a universal format.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein said traffic data comprises a separate data record for each hit.

21. The method of claim 18 wherein said traffic data includes date, time, URL, and user identification.

22. The method of claim 18 wherein said traffic data includes date, time, URL, and user identification.

23. A method of analysing a Web site comprising the steps of:

analysing said Web site and identifying content issues for each Web page of said Web site;

obtaining traffic data for each said Web page of said Web site;

correlating said content issues with said traffic data; and

producing reports on said correlated data.

24. A system for analysing a Web site, said system comprising:

a Web server;

a Content Analysis server;

a Traffic Data server; and

a communication network for interconnecting said Web server, said Content Analysis server and said Traffic Data server;

said Web server supporting said Web site, and being operable to;

accumulate traffic data for said Web site;

said Traffic Data server being operable to;

aggregate said traffic data; and

said Content Analysis server being operable to;

analyse said Web site and compile a list of content issues for each page of said Web site, said content issues being indexed by Web page;

obtain traffic data for said Web pages from said Traffic Data Server;

correlate said list of content issues with said Traffic Data; and

produce reports on said correlated data.