Article

How to define searching sessions on web search engines

Authors:

Bernard J. Jansen,

Vinish KathuriaAuthors Info & Claims

WebKDD'06: Proceedings of the 8th Knowledge discovery on the web international conference on Advances in web mining and web usage analysis

Pages 92 - 109

Published: 20 August 2006 Publication History

Abstract

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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Cited By

Wiggers GVerberne Svan Loon WZwenne G(2023)Bibliometric‐enhanced legal information retrievalJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2479974:8(1010-1025)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.24799
Budylin RDrutsa AKatsev ITsoy VChang YZhai CLiu YMaarek Y(2018)Consistent Transformation of Ratio Metrics for Efficient Online Controlled ExperimentsProceedings of the Eleventh ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining10.1145/3159652.3159699(55-63)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3159652.3159699
Drutsa AGusev GSerdyukov PBarrett RCummings RAgichtein EGabrilovich E(2017)Using the Delay in a Treatment Effect to Improve Sensitivity and Preserve Directionality of Engagement Metrics in A/B ExperimentsProceedings of the 26th International Conference on World Wide Web10.1145/3038912.3052664(1301-1310)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3038912.3052664
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Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

WebKDD'06: Proceedings of the 8th Knowledge discovery on the web international conference on Advances in web mining and web usage analysis

August 2006

247 pages

ISBN:354077484X

Editors:
Olfa Nasraoui
University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
,
Myra Spiliopoulou
Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany
,
Jaideep Srivastava
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
,
Bamshad Mobasher
DePaul University, Chicago, IL
,
Brij Masand
Data Miners Inc., Boston, MA

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 20 August 2006

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Cited By

Wiggers GVerberne Svan Loon WZwenne G(2023)Bibliometric‐enhanced legal information retrievalJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2479974:8(1010-1025)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.24799
Budylin RDrutsa AKatsev ITsoy VChang YZhai CLiu YMaarek Y(2018)Consistent Transformation of Ratio Metrics for Efficient Online Controlled ExperimentsProceedings of the Eleventh ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining10.1145/3159652.3159699(55-63)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3159652.3159699
Drutsa AGusev GSerdyukov PBarrett RCummings RAgichtein EGabrilovich E(2017)Using the Delay in a Treatment Effect to Improve Sensitivity and Preserve Directionality of Engagement Metrics in A/B ExperimentsProceedings of the 26th International Conference on World Wide Web10.1145/3038912.3052664(1301-1310)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3038912.3052664
Drutsa AUfliand AGusev GBailey JMoffat AAggarwal Cde Rijke MKumar RMurdock VSellis TYu J(2015)Practical Aspects of Sensitivity in Online Experimentation with User Engagement MetricsProceedings of the 24th ACM International on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management10.1145/2806416.2806496(763-772)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2806416.2806496
Drutsa AGusev GSerdyukov PGangemi ALeonardi SPanconesi A(2015)Future User Engagement Prediction and Its Application to Improve the Sensitivity of Online ExperimentsProceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web10.1145/2736277.2741116(256-266)Online publication date: 18-May-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2736277.2741116
Drutsa AGusev GSerdyukov PCheng XLi HGabrilovich ETang J(2015)Engagement Periodicity in Search Engine UsageProceedings of the Eighth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining10.1145/2684822.2685318(27-36)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2684822.2685318
Lehmann JLalmas MDupret GBaeza-Yates RHe QIyengar ANejdl WPei JRastogi R(2013)Online multitasking and user engagementProceedings of the 22nd ACM international conference on Information & Knowledge Management10.1145/2505515.2505543(519-528)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2505515.2505543
Liao ZSong YHe LHuang YMille AGandon FMisselis JRabinovich MStaab S(2012)Evaluating the effectiveness of search task trailsProceedings of the 21st international conference on World Wide Web10.1145/2187836.2187903(489-498)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2187836.2187903
Daoud MTamine-Lechani LBoughanem M(2008)Learning user interests for a session-based personalized searchProceedings of the second international symposium on Information interaction in context10.1145/1414694.1414708(57-64)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1414694.1414708
Nasraoui OSpiliopoulou MSrivastava JMobasher BMasand B(2006)WebKDD 2006ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter10.1145/1233321.12333348:2(84-89)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1233321.1233334

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