Testing the Suitability of Markov Chains as Web Usage Models

  • Authors:
  • Zhao Li;Jeff Tian

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • COMPSAC '03 Proceedings of the 27th Annual International Conference on Computer Software and Applications
  • Year:
  • 2003

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Markov chains have been used to model web usages andserved as the basis for statistical testing, performance evaluation,and reliability analysis. However, most of such applicationsof Markov chains were carried out without answeringthe question: "Can web usage be accurately modeledby Markov chains?" In this paper, we propose a set oftests, which are easy to perform based on information aboutweb link usage frequencies gathered from web server logs,to answer this question. We applied this approach to ouruniversity's web site, and our results indicate that Markovchains can provide fairly accurate models of web usages.