Knowledge Bridge

Web Analytics

Web analytics is the process of measuring, collecting, analyzing and reporting a web content’s data in order to understand the behavior of visitors on a website, so it enables publisher to optimize the website usage in a more effective way.

Web beacon

A web beacon, also known as a web bug, 1 by 1 GIF, invisible GIF, and tracking pixel, is a tiny image referenced by a line of HTML or a block of JavaScript code embedded into a web site or third party ad server to track activity.

The image used is generally a single pixel that is delivered to the web browser with HTML instructions that keep it from affecting the web site layout. The web beacon will typically include user information like cookies on the HTTP headers, and web site information on the query string.

Web beacons are used to collect data for web site and ad delivery analytics, and also specific events such as a registration or conversion.

Web crawler

A web crawler (also known as an automatic indexer, bot, Web spider, Web robot) is a software program which visits Web pages in a methodical, automated manner.

This process is called Web crawling or spidering, and the resulting data is used for various purposes, including building indexes for search engines, validating that ads are being displayed in the appropriate context, and detecting malicious code on compromised web servers.

Many web crawlers will politely identify themselves via their user-agent string, which provides a reliable way of excluding a significant amount of non-human traffic from advertising metrics. The IAB (in conjunction with ABCe) maintains a list of known user-agent strings as the Spiders and Bots list. However, those web crawlers attempting to discover malicious code often must attempt to appear to be human traffic, which requires secondary, behavioral filtering to detect.

Most web crawlers will respect a file called robots.txt, hosted in the root of a web site. This file informs the web crawler which directories should and shouldn't be indexed, but does not enact any actual access restrictions.

Technically, a web crawler is a specific type of bot, or software agent.

See Bot and Intelligent agents.

Webcasting

Real-time or pre-recorded delivery of a live event’s audio, video, or animation over the Internet.

Widget

A small application designed to reside on a PC desktop (Mac OS X or Windows Vista) or within a Web-based portal or social network site (e.g., MySpace or Facebook) offering useful or entertaining functionality to the end user.

Widget and Social Media Application Metrics

The following metrics apply specifically to widgets and social media applications. These supplementary metrics offer advertisers a greater insight into ROI for all widget and social media application campaigns.

• Installs - Applications

Total installations of application.

• Active Users

Total users interacting with application over a specific time frame, usually day/week/month. Many applications have rapid growth but lose activity over time.

• Audience Profile

User demographics from self reported profile information

• Unique User Reach

Percentage of users who have installed application among the total social media audience (or calculated as active application users per audience).

• Growth

Average number of users within a specific time frame.

• Influence

Average number of friends among users who have installed application.

• Application/Widget installs - User

Number of application or widgets installed by a user onto their profile page or other area. Also called embed, grab or post.

• Active users/Widgets in the wild

Number of people regularly using an application at a given point in time. Number of widgets on a user page at a given point in time.

• Longevity/Lifecycle

Average period of time for which an application or widget remains installed by a user.