TY - GEN
T1 - How to define searching sessions on web search engines
AU - Jansen, Bernard J.
AU - Spink, Amanda
AU - Kathuria, Vinish
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - In this research, we investigate three techniques for defining user sessions on Web search engines. We analyze 2,465,145 interactions from 534,507 Web searchers. We compare three methods for defining sessions using: 1) Internet Protocol address and cookie; 2) Internet Protocol address, cookie, and a temporal limit on intra-session interactions; and 3) Internet Protocol address, cookie, and query reformulation patterns. Research results shows that defining sessions by query reformulation provides the best measure of session identification, with a nearly 95% accuracy. This method also results in an 82% increase in the number of sessions compared to Internet Protocol address and cookie alone. Regardless of the method, mean session length was fewer than three queries and the mean session duration was less than 30 minutes. Implications are that unique sessions may be a better indicator than the common industry metric of unique visitors for measuring search traffic. Results of this research may lead to tools to better support Web searching.
AB - In this research, we investigate three techniques for defining user sessions on Web search engines. We analyze 2,465,145 interactions from 534,507 Web searchers. We compare three methods for defining sessions using: 1) Internet Protocol address and cookie; 2) Internet Protocol address, cookie, and a temporal limit on intra-session interactions; and 3) Internet Protocol address, cookie, and query reformulation patterns. Research results shows that defining sessions by query reformulation provides the best measure of session identification, with a nearly 95% accuracy. This method also results in an 82% increase in the number of sessions compared to Internet Protocol address and cookie alone. Regardless of the method, mean session length was fewer than three queries and the mean session duration was less than 30 minutes. Implications are that unique sessions may be a better indicator than the common industry metric of unique visitors for measuring search traffic. Results of this research may lead to tools to better support Web searching.
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U2 - 10.1007/978-3-540-77485-3_6
DO - 10.1007/978-3-540-77485-3_6
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:38549108348
SN - 354077484X
SN - 9783540774846
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 92
EP - 109
BT - Advances in Web Mining and Web Usage Analysis - 8th International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery on the Web, WebKDD 2006, Revised Papers
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 8th International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery on the Web, WebKDD 2006
Y2 - 20 August 2006 through 20 August 2006
ER -