DATA WAREHOUSING AND MINIG LECTURE NOTES-- Web Data Mining

Web Data Mining:

The term Web Data Mining is a technique used to crawl through various web resources to collect required information, which enables an individual or a company to promote business, understanding marketing dynamics, new promotions floating on the Internet, etc. There is a growing trend among companies, organizations and individuals alike to gather information through web data mining to utilize that information in their best interest.

Data Mining is done through various types of data mining software. These can be simple data mining software or highly specific for detailed and extensive tasks that will be sifting through more information to pick out finer bits of information. For example, if a company is looking for information on doctors including their emails, fax, telephone, location, etc., this information can be mined through one of these data mining software programs. This information collection through data mining has allowed companies to make thousands and thousands of dollars in revenues by being able to better use the internet to gain business intelligence that helps companies make vital business decisions.

Before this data mining software came into being, different businesses used to collect information from recorded data sources. But the bulk of this information is too much too daunting and time consuming to gather by going through all the records, therefore the approach of computer based data mining came into being and has gained huge popularity to now become a necessity for the survival of most businesses.

This collected information is used to gain more knowledge and based on the findings and analysis of the information make predictions as to what would be the best choice and the right approach to move toward on a particular issue. Web data mining is not only focused to gain business information but is also used by various organizational departments to make the right predictions and decisions for things like business development, work flow, production processes and more by going through the business models derived from the data mining.

A strategic analysis department can undermine their client archives with data mining software to determine what offers they need to send to what clients for maximum conversions rates. For example, a company is thinking about launching cotton shirts as their new product. Through their client database, they can clearly determine as to how many clients have placed orders for cotton shirts over the last year and how much revenue such orders have brought to the company.

After having a hold on such analysis, the company can make their decisions about which offers to send both to those clients who had placed orders on the cotton shirts and those who had not. This makes sure that the organization heads in the right direction in their marketing and not goes through a trial and error phase to learn the hard facts by spending money needlessly. These analytical facts also shed light as to what the percentage of customers is who can move from your company to your competitor.

The data mining also empowers companies to keep a record of fraudulent payments which can all be researched and studied through data mining. This information can help develop more advanced and protective methods that can be undertaken to prevent such events from happening. Buying trends shown through web data mining can help you to make forecast on your inventories as well. This is a direct analysis, which will empower the organization to fill in their stocks appropriately for each month depending on the predictions they have laid out through this analysis of buying trends.

The data mining technology is going through a huge evolution and new and better techniques are made available all the time to gather whatever information is required. Web data mining technology is opening avenues on not just gathering data but it is also raising a lot of concerns related to data security. There is loads of personal information available on the internet and web data mining had helped to keep the idea of the need to secure that information at the forefront.