Core Elements of a Web Analytics Process

Here is a description of a web analytics process with just the core stages. The core of a Web analytics process consists of four essential stages, shown below. Collecting data: At this stage, you collect the basic, elementary data. Typically, these data are counts of things or events. Processing of data into information: At this…… Continue reading Core Elements of a Web Analytics Process

Big Data Fallacy

Big Data Fallacy. The law of large numbers argues that the sample’s mean approaches the sample population’s actual average as a sample size increases. This concept is often, either implicitly or explicitly, taken as a justification as to why ‘big data’ (i.e., millions or billions of samples) cannot be wrong. However, there are contrary arguments and…… Continue reading Big Data Fallacy

Flaw of Averages

When working with numbers representing many people, one often employs the average to describe the people represented by the numbers. However, this approach can lead to serious problems due to the flaw of averages, which is that findings based on the average are wrong on average. In fact, often when dealing with people, the average person…… Continue reading Flaw of Averages

SIG-KM International Research Symposium 2022 Keynote

Super time at the SIG-KM International Research Symposium 2022, hosted online by the University of North Texas. Thanks to Jeff Allen and to Lu An for the invitation! Thanks also to the Center for Studies of Information Resources (CSIR) of Wuhan University (WHU) and other academic sponsors for their support of the symposium!  

Comparison of Google Analytics and SimilarWeb for Web Analytics

Approaches to collecting website analytics data can be grouped by the focus of data collection efforts, resulting in the emergence of three general methodologies, namely: user-centric, site-centric, and network-centric. Two industry standard and popular web analytics platforms are Google Analytics and SimilarWeb. Google Analytics is a site-centric service, and SimilarWeb is a user-centric service that…… Continue reading Comparison of Google Analytics and SimilarWeb for Web Analytics

User-centric, site-centric, and network-centric: Approaches to collecting website analytics data

Approaches to collecting website analytics data can be grouped by the focus of data collection efforts, resulting in the emergence of three general methodologies, namely: (a) user-centric, (b) site-centric, and (c) network-centric. The central traits of each are as follows. User-centric: Web analytics data is gathered via a panel of users, which is tracked by software installed on…… Continue reading User-centric, site-centric, and network-centric: Approaches to collecting website analytics data