Monitoring the health of web page analytics code

• US 8,578,019 B2
• Filed: 11/02/2009
• Issued: 11/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ObservePoint, Inc.
• Original Assignee: ObservePoint, Inc.
• Inventors: Seolas, Robert K., Pestana, John, Broadbent, J. Tyler, Zinn, Richard A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zong, Ruolei
• Application Number:
  US12/611,056
• Publication Number:
  US 20110035486A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,464 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/223, 709/225, 714/47.1, 714/47.2, 714/47.3, 714/48
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/362 Software debugging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3692 for test results analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level

Abstract

A system for monitoring the “analytics health” or “tracking health” of a web page can include one or more modules that render analytics code on the web page. In one implementation, a monitoring service downloads one or more web pages from a web server. The monitoring service can attempt to render any analytics code on the web pages to see if the analytics code renders or executes as expected. The monitoring service can also perform basic text searches to identify analytics code, even if it cannot be rendered, and to determine if such code is present and correctly written in the web page. For web pages that require form input, the monitoring service can prompt the user for corresponding input, or retrieve pre-recorded user input from a store. The monitoring service can determine analytics health for web pages of interest in real-time.

Claims

1. At a monitoring system in a computerized environment comprising one or more websites having one or more web pages and one or more sets of analytics code on one or more of the web pages, a computerized method of automatically monitoring the presence and function of the analytics code on one or more web pages of interest, comprising:

identifying a set of one or more web pages to monitor;

receiving from a web server at least one of the one or more web pages, wherein the at least one web page comprises source code related to one or more website analytics objects;

identifying one or more website analytics objects in the source code;

rendering the source code of the at least one web page thereby creating rendering results;

determining whether one or more requests for the one or more website analytics objects were made when rendering the source code of the at least one web page; and

automatically providing an analytics health value for the at least one web page based at least in part on whether one or more requests were made for the one or more website analytic objects during rendering of the source code, the analytics health value being indicative of at least a percentage of the one or more website analytics objects identified in the source code that were requested during rendering of the source code.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein identifying a set of one or more web pages further comprises identifying one or more settings for monitoring the presence and function of the analytics code on the set of one or more web pages.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the one or more settings comprise a request to monitor the presence and function of the analytics code in real-time, the method further comprising repeating receiving the at least one web page and rendering the at least one web page after an interval of 10 minutes or less.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

separately searching source code of the at least one web page for one or more website analytics objects;

wherein the search is performed without executing or rendering the source code.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising:

automatically comparing results of the source code searching with the rendering results;

wherein the analytics health value is based on the results comparison.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising automatically determining that an expected analytics object on the at least one web page could not be executed.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, further comprising providing a low analytics health value for the at least one web page.

8. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the act of automatically determining that the analytics object could not be executed comprises:

identifying that the analytics object comprises one or more network requests for a file; and

determining that, when rendering the at least one web page, the request for the file was not made.

9. The method as recited in claim 6, further comprising:

automatically determining that user input is needed to complete processing of the at least one web page; and

sending one or more requests for pre-recorded user input in one or more forms.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, further comprising:

completing rendering of the least one web page with the user input; and

executing the expected analytics object.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more website analytics comprises code for a tracking pixel.

12. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein:

the one or more website analytic objects comprises a signature for the at least one web page; and

the signature comprises a predetermined arrangement of web page source code content for the at least one web page.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the web page source code content comprises on one or more of a base domain, a transfer protocol, a file path, or a query string.

14. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein automatically providing the analytics health value comprises identifying that downloaded code in the set of one or more web pages matches the signature.

15. At a monitoring system in a computerized environment comprising one or more websites having one or more web pages and one or more sets of analytics code on one or more of the web pages, a method of automatically using stored workflow information to identify the presence and function of the analytics code on one or more web pages of interest, comprising:

receiving from a web server at least one of the one or more web pages, wherein the at least one web page comprises source code related to one or more website analytics objects;

identifying one or more forms in the at least one web page that need to be completed before at least one of the one or more web pages can be rendered completely;

automatically filling in the one or more forms with data corresponding to one or more stored workflows;

rendering the at least one web page to completion after filling in the one or more forms;

determining whether one or more requests for the one or more website analytics objects were made when rendering the at least one web page to completion; and

automatically providing an analytics health value for one of the web pages based at least in part on whether one or more requests were made for the one or more website analytics objects during rendering of the at least one web page as a result of filling in the one or more forms, the analytics health value being indicative of at least a percentage of the one or more website analytics objects requested during rendering of the source code.

16. The method as recited in claim 15, further comprising searching source code of the at least one web page to identify at least one website analytics object.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, further comprising:

rendering the at least one web page to completion after filling in the one or more forms; and

determining that the identified at least one website analytics object cannot be executed.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the analytics health value indicates that the identified at least one website analytics object was accessible but could not be executed.

19. The method as recited in claim 18, further comprising identifying that another identified website analytics object could be executed, wherein the analytics health value further reflects that the other identified website analytics object could be executed.

20. At a monitoring system in a computerized environment comprising one or more websites having one or more web pages and one or more sets of analytics code on one or more of the web pages, a computer program product storage device comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors in a computerized system to perform a method comprising:

identifying a set of one or more web pages to monitor;

receiving from a web server at least one of the one or more web pages, wherein the at least one web page comprises source code related to one or more website analytics objects;

identifying one or more website analytics objects in the source code;

rendering the source code of the at least one web page thereby creating rendering results;

determining whether one or more requests for the one or more website analytics objects were made when rendering the source code of the at least one web page; and

automatically providing an analytics health value for the at least one web page based at least in part on whether one or more requests were made for the one or more website analytic objects during rendering of the source code, the analytics health value being indicative of at least a percentage of the one or more website analytics objects identified in the source code that were requested during rendering of the source code.