Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Computer network monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-28
2003-03-18
Etienne, Ario (Department: 2157)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Computer network monitoring
C709S203000, C709S206000, C709S226000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06535916
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to Web sites and, more particularly, to analyzing Web site visitor activities.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The Internet has gained broad recognition and acceptance as a viable medium for communicating and for conducting business. The World-Wide Web (Web) was created in the early 1990's, and is comprised of server-hosting computers (Web servers) connected to the Internet that have hypertext documents (referred to as Web pages) stored therewithin. Web pages are accessible by client programs (e.g., Web browsers) utilizing the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) via a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection between a client-hosting device and a server-hosting device. While HTTP and Web pages are the prevalent forms for the Web, the Web itself refers to a wide range of protocols including Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Gopher, and Web content formats including plain text, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), as well as image formats such as Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG).
A Web site is conventionally a related collection of Web files that includes a beginning file called a “home” page. From the home page, a visitor can access other files and applications at a Web site. A large Web site may utilize a number of servers, which may or may not be different and may or may not be geographically-dispersed. For example, the Web site of the International Business Machines Corporation (www.ibm.com) consists of thousands of Web pages and files spread out over multiple Web servers in locations world-wide.
A Web server (also referred to as an HTTP server) is a computer program that utilizes HTTP to serve files that form Web pages to Web clients. Exemplary Web servers are International Business Machines Corporation's family of Lotus Domino® servers and the Apache server (available from www.apache.org). A Web client is a requesting program that also utilizes HTTP. A browser is an exemplary Web client for use in requesting Web pages and files from Web servers. A Web server waits for a Web client, such as a browser, to open a connection and to request a specific web page or application. The Web server then sends a copy of the requested item to the Web client, closes the connection with the Web client, and waits for the next connection.
HTTP allows a browser to request a specific item, which a Web server then returns and the browser renders. To ensure that browsers and Web servers can interoperate unambiguously, HTTP defines the exact format of requests (HTTP requests) sent from a browser to a Web server as well as the format of responses (HTTP responses) that the Web server returns to the browser. Exemplary browsers include Netscape Navigator® (America Online, Inc., Dulles, Va.) and Internet Explorer® (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.). Browsers typically provide a graphical user interface for retrieving and viewing Web pages, applications, and other resources served by Web servers.
The topology of many Web sites is becoming complex, especially Web sites involved in electronic commerce (“e-commerce”). Increasingly, Web sites are utilizing Web application servers and “back-end” servers to process Web client requests. A Web application server is a “middleman” server that operates between a Web server and one or more back-end servers, such as a database, transaction, or advertising server. An exemplary Web application server is the WebSphere® application server available from International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. Exemplary back-end servers include CICS, IBM DB2 Universal Database, and WebSphere Net.Commerce server, available from International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.
FIG. 1
illustrates a conventional Web site
10
having multiple Web servers
12
a,
12
b
and
12
c,
and an application server
14
. The illustrated Web site
10
also includes an Advertising server
16
and a Transaction server
18
which are back-end processing servers. As is understood by those of skill in the art, each Web server
12
a,
12
b,
12
c
is configured to receive client requests and issue responses thereto. Each Web server
12
a,
12
b,
12
c
is also configured to route requests to an Application server
14
for additional processing if necessary.
As illustrated in
FIG. 1
, Web servers
12
a,
12
b,
12
c
include respective log files
13
a,
13
b,
13
c.
In addition, the Application server
14
, the Advertising server
16
, and the Transaction server
18
each have respective.log files
15
a,
15
b,
15
c
as illustrated. As is known by those of skill in the art, a server log file may be utilized to store a record containing information about each transaction (i.e., requests and responses) handled by a respective server. For example, the log file
13
a
for Web server
12
a
may store a record for each request received from a client and each response issued to a client. The Application server
14
may store a record in its log file
15
a
for each request received from a Web server and stores a record for each response issued to a Web server. Similarly, the Advertising server and Transaction server may store records in their respective log files
15
b,
15
c
for responses and requests to and from the Application server
14
or to and from another server or to a client.
Information contained within server log records is conventionally utilized to study the activities of Web site visitors (referred to a “psychographic” information). Analyzing and understanding Web site visitor psychographic information is becoming increasingly important to businesses operating on the Web. For example, the following psychographic information can be valuable: visitor identification, time of day a visitor accessed a Web site, an identification of each Web page requested by a visitor, how long a visitor spent viewing each Web page, and where the visitor came from (i.e., a referring URL). By analyzing Web site visitor psychographic information, a Web site owner can gain valuable insight into the effectiveness of a Web site in achieving its intended purpose. For example, a determination can be made as to what type of advertising should be placed on web pages that a particular type of visitor is likely to visit.
To accurately analyze psychographic information, it is desirable to be able to piece together a visitor's actions as a stream of requests into a unit called a session. A session starts the first time a visitor comes to a Web site and ends with an explicit log-out or an idle-time expiration. Unfortunately, analyzing psychographic information for Web site visitors can be difficult for complex Web sites, especially e-commerce Web sites that utilize multiple, different servers. A session can be difficult to accurately reconstruct from the records contained within multiple servers. This is because server log records for servers “downstream” from a Web server that has an established connection with a visitor's client typically are not linked to a visitor.
For example, a visitor of the Web site illustrated in
FIG. 2
might submit a form to the first Web server
12
a
with a request that some action be performed on or with the data within the form. The first Web server
12
a
records the visitor's request in its log
13
a
and passes the data within the form to the Application server
14
. The Application server
14
could invoke a servlet or other program that updates information in a database via the Transaction server
18
. Under this scenario, the Application server
14
could record the invoked servlet (or other program) request from the first Web server
12
a
in its log
15
a,
and the Transaction server
18
could log the update to the database in its log
15
c.
In addition, the Advertising server
16
could be invoked by the Application server
14
to send coupons directly to the client
20
. Under this scenario, the Advertising server could record in
Clay A. Bruce
Etienne Ario
International Business Machines - Corporation
Jacobs LaShonda
Myers Bigel & Sibley & Sajovec
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