Web Analytics for Web Site Quality Improvement

History

Web analytics started about 10 years ago with the emergence of the Internet, when its audience started to grow significantly and other media were showing increasing interest and concern for the World Wide Web. Web analytics tools have been designed to gather and parse Web servers log files, compute metrics from the extracted data, and generate text reports. With technologies’ evolutions, new data-gathering methods have been developed and reports have been enhanced with tables and graphics. It focuses on in-depth comparison of available visitor data, referral data and site navigation pattern. The diagram below (Figure-1) gives a visual look of how web analytics has advanced with time (Web Analytics & usability Blog).

Figure 1.

Transformation of web with time

Evolution of Web

Web is the largest transformable-information construct that its idea was introduced by Tim Burners-Lee in 1989. Much progress has been made about the web and related technologies in the past two decades. Web 1.0 as a web of cognition, web 2.0 as a web of communication, web 3.0 as a web of co-operation and web 4.0 as a web of integration are introduced such as four generation of the web since the advent of the web. Overall Evolution of the World Wide Web during its existence can be categorized into three phases (FIGURE 2).

Figure 2.

Evolution of Web

Web analytics can generate results for any kind of Web site:

Static Web sites: Web analytics tools have been designed from the ground-up to analyze the consultation of static Web sites. Web analytics tools are traditionally used for such Web sites, and literature abounds in explaining how to interpret the reports in this context.

Dynamic Web sites: Web analytics tools are used less for dynamic Web sites because in this case most of the reports are useless, incomplete, or must be interpreted differently.

Web services: Web analytics tools can bring into this context is a question that remains to be answered.