METHOD FOR MEASURING WEB SITE PERFORMANCE

• US 20090327353A1
• Filed: 06/30/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhuge, Yue, Wu, Kun
• Granted Patent: US 8,090,679 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

An approach for systematically and objectively assessing the health of a web site, or other complex system, using two layers of information. A scoring method is used to provide an objective qualitative judgment, together with detailed areas of analysis if desired. A set of metrics is identified, and a health score for each metric is calculated based upon assessment parameters or angles, based upon the actual data and upon the expectations. The overall health score of the system is then calculated as a composite metric based upon the individual metric health scores. A total score, together with a visual representation of the individual metric scores, is presented to the end user. The two layers of information utilized in the general framework include the domain (which determines the set of metrics and assessment parameters, e.g., web site analysis) and the model (or processing desired, e.g., a scoring model or alert model).

Claims

1. A method for determining a score indicating an assessment of traffic for a selected website over a selected timeframe, the method comprising the steps of:

identifying a plurality of metrics indicating various performance indicators of the website,

choosing a plurality of assessment parameters for which each of the plurality of metrics may be measured against,

calculating a health score of each of the plurality of metrics along each of the plurality of assessment parameters,

determining an overall health score for the selected website, wherein the overall health score is composite metric based upon the health score calculated for each of the plurality of metrics.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the overall health score is determined by calculating a weighted average of each of the health scores calculated for each of the plurality of metrics.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of metrics include at least one of page views, unique users, session counts and time spent on the selected website.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of assessment parameters include an absolute value assessment, wherein said metric value is compared with expectations.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of assessment parameters includes growth, wherein a historical assessment of said metric value is performed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of assessment parameters includes peers, wherein a comparison with peers and competitors of said metric value is performed.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein for each assessment parameter, a calculation of health score is performed based upon actual numerical metric data and upon expectations.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein a visual graph is provided to the end user on a display.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein health scores for each of the plurality of metrics are included in the visual graph.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the overall health score for the entire web site is included in the visual graph.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a tabular form of the individual health scores for each of the plurality of metrics, for each of the assessment parameters, is graphically displayed to the end user.

12. A framework for assessing performance of a complex system over a period of time comprising:

a domain, wherein said domain dictates a set of metrics and assessment parameters for said complex system; and

a model for interpreting the set of metrics and assessment parameters in said domain,

wherein the framework includes the ability to define metrics, the ability to control contributions from each metric and from each assessment parameter, the ability to produce a same result for a subset of data, the ability to manage missing information, and the ability to manage anomalies in data.

13. The framework of claim 12, wherein said domain comprises web site analysis.

14. The framework of claim 12, wherein said model comprises a scoring model or an alert model.

15. The framework of claim 14, wherein when said model comprises a scoring model, different parameters are used to produce different sub-models.

16. A system architecture for systematically assessing the performance of a complex system over a selected timeframe, utilizing two layers of information, comprising:

a front end for receiving input including a domain description, model definitions, model parameters, expected metric values and libraries to support computations, and for presenting results to end users;

data stores for storing data including input received from the front end, historical data, data to compute metrics and data to support assessment of different assessment parameters; and

processing modules for obtaining metric values, perform pattern detection, prediction and clustering, interpret model definitions and provide final results as to the assessment of performance.

17. The system architecture of claim 16, wherein said front end includes a display mechanism on which the final results are provided.

18. The system architecture of claim 16, wherein the domain description determines the set of metrics and assessment parameters.

19. The system architecture of claim 16, wherein the domain comprises web site analysis, and the model comprises a scoring model.

20. The system architecture of claim 16, wherein the domain comprises web site analysis, and the model comprises an alert model.