Tab-Specific Navigation Tracking via Unique Identifiers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing web browsers lack the ability to track navigation flows within individual tabs due to shared browser sessions and session cookies, making it difficult to analyze user interactions with specific websites or domains.
Innovation Solution
Implementing client-side and server-side software that utilize unique identifiers, such as Experience IDs and Flow IDs, to differentiate between tabs and track navigation activities within each tab, ensuring that each tab's requests are associated with a specific identifier for accurate tracking.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If multiple tabs share the same browser session and session cookies, then convenient login is maintained across tabs, but navigation flow tracking within individual tabs becomes impossible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the browser session by introducing tab-specific identifiers (Experience ID and Flow ID) that are propagated across requests within each tab. This segmentation allows the system to distinguish between different tabs while maintaining the shared session cookie structure, thereby enabling navigation tracking without sacrificing the convenience of shared login state.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses intermediary identifiers (Experience ID and Flow ID) as mediators between the shared session cookies and the need for tab-specific tracking. These identifiers are embedded in page responses and carried in subsequent requests, serving as a bridge that enables tab differentiation without requiring separate session cookies for each tab.
2Measurement precision
If tab-specific identifiers are introduced to track navigation flows, then navigation tracking precision is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the identifier system universal by implementing the same Experience ID and Flow ID propagation mechanism across all tabs and requests. The server-side logic uniformly handles identifier propagation for every request, and the client-side JavaScript consistently embeds and reads these identifiers. This universal approach simplifies the overall system architecture compared to implementing separate tracking mechanisms for different scenarios.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameters of request tracking by adding new identifier fields (Experience ID and Flow ID) to the existing request-response cycle. Rather than fundamentally redesigning the session management system, the invention extends the existing cookie and request parameter structure, thereby improving measurement precision while minimizing the increase in system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
Various embodiments enable navigation flows that occur within a single tab to be tracked through the use of identifiers that are created and passed between client-side and server-side software. The client-side and server-side software work in concert to utilize these identifiers to track navigation within a particular tab. In at least some embodiments, a client can request a web page from within a tab and, responsive to that request, a server can create an identifier and associate the identifier with the web page. The web page and identifier can then be returned to the client. Subsequent web page requests from within the tab include the identifier so that the server knows that the request came from the same tab.