Patent · US Expired

Method and system for emulating web site traffic to identify web site usage patterns

US6278966A · kind A · utility

100Cited by
13References
71Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 18, 1998
Grant dateAug 21, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 18, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F2201/875
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and device to generate behavior for emulated visitors traversing an internet web site. The visitors may display behavior that is indistinguishable from those of actual users, a subset of the actual users, or the behavior may be purely hypothetical, such as when a visitor acts without evidence of having made an intentional choice. The invention tracks the actions of the visitors and develops reference distributions that may be compared to a site's usage distributions as obtained from actual visitors to the site. The reference distributions are then used to implement statistical estimation methods that measure relative information content. The invention comprises a general implementation and a deterministic implementation. The general version may be applied to live production web sites, and the deterministic version is best suited to offline processing.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.