Patent ID: 7533179

Claim:
A method performed by a computer system, of collecting and classifying data about computer network traffic as user website visit recording sessions, comprising determining whether a data request to at least one website comprises an ongoing interaction with a website or whether the request is a new site visit by a user of a plurality of users, said method including: assembling a data table made up of all known hosts that are able to direct users to a specific website; classifying the computer network traffic corresponding to said sessions by tracking each user request of said plurality of users to all known hosts for each specific website; if the request is a new visit, creating a first record of a new site visit for each user; if the request for each user is a first ongoing interaction which occurred more than a predetermined amount of time since a last visit, creating a second record of the data request as a new site visit for each user; if the request is a second ongoing interaction occurring at less than the predetermined amount of time since the last visit, processing the request as a continuation of the last visit for each user; characterizing the network traffic based on the first or second records created for each website independent of which host is used by each user to request data from each website; and wherein said predetermined amount of time is within five to fifteen minutes if the data request is to one of said known hosts, an open site visit is running to said specific website and an intervening data request has not been received.