Understanding user-Web interactions via Web analytics

• Main Author: Jansen, Bernard J.
• Format: Electronic
• Language: English
• Published: San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, c2009.
• Series: Synthesis lectures on information concepts, retrieval, and services (Online), # 6.
• Subjects: Web usage mining.; Webometrics.; Internet users > Statistics > Data processing.
• Online Access: Abstract with links to full text
• Item Description: Part of: Synthesis digital library of engineering and computer science.; Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on August 9, 2009).; Series from website.
• Physical Description: 1 electronic text (xiii, 101 p. : ill.) : digital file.; Also available in print.
• Format: Mode of access: World Wide Web.; System requirements: Adobe Acrobat reader.
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-100).
• ISBN: 9781598298529 (electronic bk.)
• ISSN: 1947-9468
• Access: Abstract freely available; full-text restricted to subscribers or individual document purchasers.

This lecture presents an overview of the Web analytics process, with a focus on providing insight and actionable outcomes from collecting and analyzing Internet data. The lecture first provides an overview of Web analytics, providing in essence, a condensed version of the entire lecture. The lecture then outlines the theoretical and methodological foundations of Web analytics in order to make obvious the strengths and shortcomings of Web analytics as an approach. These foundational elements include the psychological basis in behaviorism and methodological underpinning of trace data as an empirical method. These foundational elements are illuminated further through a brief history of Web analytics from the original transaction log studies in the 1960s through the information science investigations of library systems to the focus on Websites, systems, and applications. Following a discussion of on-going interaction data within the clickstream created using log files and page tagging for analytics of Website and search logs, the lecture then presents a Web analytic process to convert these basic data to meaningful key performance indicators in order to measure likely converts that are tailored to the organizational goals or potential opportunities. Supplementary data collection techniques are addressed, including surveys and laboratory studies. The overall goal of this lecture is to provide implementable information and a methodology for understanding Web analytics in order to improve Web systems, increase customer satisfaction, and target revenue through effective analysis of user-Website interactions.