Advancing Web Analytics

Web analytics consists of collecting and analyzing internet data, such as the information found within web server access logs, in order to generate information for the purposes of understanding web usage and web user behavior. Web analytics is divided into two cate- gories: off-site and on-site. Off-site analytics determines the website’s audience, share of voice, and buzz in relation to the internet as a whole, whereas on-site analytics consists of measurements that require the information generated by users once they are on your website. Web server logfile analysis, page tagging, and a hybrid method containing both are the three technological approaches to collecting data for on-site analytics. Log file analysis relies on the interpretation of information found within web server log files in which user requests for pages and information are stored, and page tagging uses JavaScript to notify a server housing the website’s usage information when information is requested by a web user. The hybrid approach simply combines these two approaches in order to capture previous, current, and future usage information. Our research can best be described as the analysis of web server access logs in an off-site analytics approach to better understand user behavior.