Using Petri Nets to Model the Web Structure

Precise analysis of the web structure can facilitate data processing and enhance the accuracy of the mining results in the procedure of web usage mining. Many researchers have identified that pageview identification and path completion are of great importance in the result of web usage mining. Currently, there is still a lack of an effective and systematic method to analyze and deal with the two steps. In the present study, we propose the application of Petri Nets (PN), a model used to analyze the framework of webpages in a website. We adopt Place in the PN model to represent webpage on the websites and use Transition to represent hyperlink The study explores how to undergo the pageview identification after we use the PN model to conduct the analysis of the framework and then obtain incident matrix. Likewise, we use reachability property in the model to undergo path completion.