DYNAMICALLY GENERATING AGGREGATE TABLES

• US 20100318527A1
• Filed: 05/25/2010
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: White, David, Damm, Kevin, Nandy, Sagnik
• Granted Patent: US 8,549,019 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/754
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range

Abstract

A method and system dynamically create aggregate tables. An aggregate table manager is instantiated that receives a plurality of aggregate table definitions, and generates aggregate tables based on the received aggregate table definitions. The aggregate table manager creates a view corresponding to each of the aggregate tables. The aggregate table manager creates and updates data entries in the aggregate tables based on their corresponding aggregate table definitions and data extracted from web site log files.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of creating aggregate tables for web analytics, the method comprising:

at a server having one or more processors and memory, performing the following;

identifying a web site;

receiving a plurality of aggregate table definitions, including one or more pre-defined aggregate table definitions and one or more custom aggregate table definitions;

generating respective aggregate tables for the web site for each of the received aggregate table definitions; and

populating and updating data entries in the generated aggregate tables for the web site based on their corresponding aggregate table definitions and server hit data derived from log files for the web site.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the server hit data is stored in a hits table.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more custom aggregate table definitions correspond to the web site.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the log files for a website are in two or more different formats.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a first aggregate table definition includes descriptions of metrics and dimensions to be included in a respective first aggregate table and wherein the hits data used to populate and update the first aggregate table correspond to the metric and dimension descriptions in the first aggregate table definitions.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

generating respective aggregate table classes that, when executed, cause the server to perform the generating, populating, and updating operations for the first aggregate table.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein at least one aggregate table class includes:

retrievers to retrieve from the hits table data for the metrics and dimensions used in the first aggregate table; and

filters to filter the metrics and dimensions retrieved from the hits table according to the first aggregate table definition.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the first aggregate table definition further includes:

descriptions of filtering to be performed on the hits data corresponding to one or more of the metrics and dimensions; and

a sort order indicating a sort operation to be performed on data in the first aggregate table and a metric or dimension on which the sort operation is to be applied.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

receiving a modification to an existing aggregate table definition; and

generating a new aggregate table definition using the modification.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

generating from the new aggregate table definition a respective aggregate table class that, when executed, causes the server to perform the generating, populating, and updating operations for a new aggregate table.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

reusing data from the first aggregate table in the new aggregate table without accessing a hits table for those dimensions or metrics that are duplicates of dimensions or metrics in the first aggregate table, wherein the hits table stores the server hit data.

12. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

providing an interface for end users enabling them to select for viewing at least a subset of the web analytics data;

determining whether the selected view corresponds to data in one or more aggregate tables;

when the selected view corresponds to data in at least one aggregate table;

retrieving data from the at least one aggregate table; and

returning the data to the end user in a respective view; and

when the selected view corresponds to data that is not stored in any aggregate table;

executing a corresponding query in the hits table;

retrieving the date returned from the hits table in response to the query; and

returning the data to the end user in a respective view.

13. An analytics data aggregation system, comprising:

one or more processors;

memory; and

one or more programs stored in the memory, the one or more programs comprising instructions for;

identifying a web site;

receiving a plurality of aggregate table definitions, including one or more pre-defined aggregate table definitions and one or more custom aggregate table definitions;

generating respective aggregate tables for the web site for each of the received aggregate table definitions; and

populating and updating data entries in the generated aggregate tables for the web site based on their corresponding aggregate table definitions and server hit data derived from log files for the web site.

14. The data aggregation system of claim 13, wherein the server hit data is stored in a hits table.

15. The data aggregation system of claim 13, wherein the one or more custom aggregate table definitions correspond to the web site.

16. The data aggregation system of claim 13, wherein a first aggregate table definition includes descriptions of metrics and dimensions to be included in a respective first aggregate table and wherein the hits data used to populate and update the first aggregate table correspond to the metric and dimension descriptions in the first aggregate table definitions.

17. The data aggregation system of claim 14, further comprising:

generating respective aggregate table classes that, when executed, cause the server to perform the generating, populating, and updating operations for the first aggregate table.

18. The data aggregation system of claim 17, wherein at least one aggregate table class includes:

retrievers to retrieve from the hits table data for the metrics and dimensions used in the first aggregate table; and

filters to filter the metrics and dimensions retrieved from the hits table according to the first aggregate table definition.

19. The data aggregation system of claim 16, wherein the first aggregate table definition further includes:

descriptions of filtering to be performed on the hits data corresponding to one or more of the metrics and dimensions; and

a sort order indicating a sort operation to be performed on data in the first aggregate table and a metric or dimension on which the sort operation is to be applied.

20. The data aggregation system of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a modification to an existing aggregate table definition; and

generating a new aggregate table definition using the modification.

21. The data aggregation system of claim 20, further comprising:

generating from the new aggregate table definition a respective aggregate table class that, when executed, causes the server to perform the generating, populating, and updating operations for a new aggregate table.

22. The data aggregation system of claim 21, further comprising:

reusing data from the first aggregate table in the new aggregate table without accessing a hits table for those dimensions or metrics that are duplicates of dimensions or metrics in the first aggregate table, wherein the hits table stored the server hit data.

23. The data aggregation system of claim 14, further comprising:

providing an interface for end users enabling them to select for viewing at least a subset of the web analytics data;

determining whether the selected view corresponds to data in one or more aggregate tables;

when the selected view corresponds to data in at least one aggregate table;

retrieving data from the at least one aggregate table; and

returning the data to the end user in a respective view; and

when the selected view corresponds to data that is not stored in any aggregate table;

executing a corresponding query in the hits table;

retrieving the date returned from the hits table in response to the query; and

returning the data to the end user in a respective view.

24. A computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs configured for execution by a computer, the one or more programs comprising instructions for:

providing an aggregate table manager that receives a plurality of aggregate table definitions, and generates aggregate tables based on the received aggregate table definitions; and

populating and updating data entries in the aggregate tables based on their corresponding aggregate table definitions.

25. A computer-implemented method for creating aggregate tables for web analytics, comprising:

at a server computer having one or more processors and memory, performing the following;

receiving a definition of an aggregate table including a description of metrics and dimensions to be included in the aggregate table for a particular web site, data for the metrics and dimensions being stored in a hit table generated from log files for the particular web site;

building an executable class definition for the aggregate table based on the aggregate table definition, the class definition including;

retriever modules configured to extract data for respective dimensions and metrics from the hit table and to populate the aggregate table with the extracted data;

generator modules configured to generate views for an end user corresponding to the data in the aggregate table.