The purpose of Web mining is to develop methods and systems for discovering models of objects and processes on the World Wide Web and for web-based systems that show adaptive performance. Web Mining integrates three parent areas: Data Mining (we use this term here also for the closely related areas of Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery), Internet technology and World Wide Web, and for the more recent Semantic Web. The World Wide Web has made an enormous amount of information electronically accessible. The use of email, news and markup languages like HTML allow users to publish and read documents at a world-wide scale and to communicate via chat connections, including information in the form of images and voice records. The HTTP protocol that enables access to documents over the network via Web browsers created an immense improvement in communication and access to information. For some years these possibilities were used mostly in the scientific world but recent years have seen an immense growth in popularity, supported by the wide availability of computers and broadband communication. The use of the internet for other tasks than finding information and direct communication is increasing, as can be seen from the interest in ldquoe-activitiesrdquo such as e-commerce, e-learning, e-government, e-science.

The purpose of Web mining is to develop methods and systems for discovering models of objects and processes on the World Wide Web and for web-based systems that show adaptive performance. Web Mining integrates three parent areas: Data Mining (we use this term here also for the closely related areas of Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery), Internet technology and World Wide Web, and for the more recent Semantic Web. The World Wide Web has made an enormous amount of information electronically accessible. The use of email, news and markup languages like HTML allow users to publish and read documents at a world-wide scale and to communicate via chat connections, including information in the form of images and voice records. The HTTP protocol that enables access to documents over the network via Web browsers created an immense improvement in communication and access to information. For some years these possibilities were used mostly in the scientific world but recent years have seen an immense growth in popularity, supported by the wide availability of computers and broadband communication. The use of the internet for other tasks than finding information and direct communication is increasing, as can be seen from the interest in ldquoe-activitiesrdquo such as e-commerce, e-learning, e-government, e-science.