System and method for collecting and analyzing information about content requested in a network (world wide web) environment

• US 6,601,100 B2
• Filed: 07/30/2002
• Issued: 07/29/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lee, Juhnyoung, Schonberg, Edith Gail, Podlaseck, Mark Edward, Wood, David A., Morgenstern, Leora
• Primary Examiner(s): Najjar, Saleh
• Application Number:
  US10/208,449
• Publication Number:
  US 20020198939A1
• Time in Patent Office: 364 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/225, 709/226, 709/229, 705/10
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A server system on a network such as the World Wide Web aggregates and stores information about the content of Web pages served by a server on a network. A server process receives one or more requests for Web pages from requesters connected to the network. Upon receiving the request, the server produces a requested Web page and serves the Web page to the requester. The Web pages have with one or more content elements in addition to one or more metadata entries. The metadata entries are associated with the content elements of the respective Web page produced. The system also creates and maintains a log having a plurality of records. Each record has requester fields and metadata fields. A logger process stores the metadata entries contained in each of the Web pages in one or more of the metadata fields, and stores a requester identification, associated with the requester, in the requester field of the record associated with the respective Web page.

Claims

1. A computer system having one or more central processing units, one or more memories, and one or more network interfaces connected to one or more networks, the system further comprising:

a server process, executed by one or more of the central processing units, the server process receiving one or more requests for one or more Web pages from one or more requesters through the one or more network interfaces, producing the requested Web pages from the one or more memories, and further serving each of the Web pages with one or more content elements to the requester, wherein one or more of the served Web pages comprise one or more metadata entries, each metadata entry associated with one or more hyperlinks on a served Web page, each metadata entry containing information about one or more of the content elements; and

a logger process, executed by the server process, that removes metadata entries from Web pages prior to the server process serving the Web pages, wherein the Web pages with metadata entries are served to requesters without the metadata entries, the logger process storing the metadata entries in one or more of the fields of a log having a plurality of records.

2. A system, as in claim 1, wherein each record has one or more requester fields and one or more metadata fields, and wherein the logger process stores a requester identification, associated with the requester, in the requester field of the record associated with a respective Web page.

3. A system, as in claim 2, where the requester identification is any one or more of the following:

a cookie, an IP address, a session identifier, a string, and a requester classification.

4. A system, as in claim 2, where the metadata field contains one or more hyperlink fields, where each of the hyperlink fields comprise any one or more of the following:

a Universal Resource Locator (URL) referenced by a hyperlink on the respective Web page being served, a description of the respective Web page referenced by the hyperlink, an application-specific description, and a description of a hyperlink appearance when it is rendered by a browser.

5. A system, as in claim 4, where the description of the Web page referenced by the hyperlink includes one or more the following:

a product category name, and a product name.

6. A system, as in claim 4, where the description of the hyperlink appearance includes one or more of the following:

a media type, a font type, a location on the rendered Web page, and a color.

7. A system, as in claim 4, where the application-specific description includes one or more of the following merchandising classification links:

a cross-sell link, an up-sell link, a promotion, an advertisement, a search, a direct-link, a personalization link, and a recommender link.

8. A system, as in claim 2, where the metadata field further contains a Web page description field, where the Web page description field is any one or more of the following:

a Universal Resource Locator (URL), an URL of a referral Web page, and a description of the respective Web page.

9. A system, as in claim 8, where the description of the respective Web page includes any one or more of the following:

a home page designation, a product name, a product category name, a search page designation, an index page designation, a shopping-cart page designation, a product-purchase page designation, a sitemap page designation, and an error page designation.

10. A method for collecting data about Web pages, comprising:

producing requested Web pages from one or more memories, each of the requested Web pages comprising one or more content elements, wherein one or more of the requested Web pages comprise one or more metadata entries, each metadata entry associated with one or more hyperlinks on a requested Web page, each metadata entry containing information about one or more of the content elements;

removing metadata entries from Web pages having the metadata entries;

storing the removed metadata entries in one or more of the fields of a log having a plurality of records; and

serving the Web pages, with metadata entries removed, to one or more requesters.

11. A computer program product for collecting data about Web pages, the computer program product performing the steps of:

producing requested Web pages from one or more memories, each of the requested Web pages comprising one or more content elements, wherein one or more of the requested Web pages comprise one or more metadata entries, each metadata entry associated with one or more hyperlinks on a requested Web page, each metadata entry containing information about one or more of the content elements;

removing metadata entries from Web pages having the metadata entries;

storing the removed metadata entries in one or more of the fields of a log having a plurality of records; and

serving the Web pages, with metadata entries removed, to one or more requesters.