---
title: "Text mining vs web usage mining"
subject: "Information System"
chapter: 7
key: "semester_8/information_system:text-mining-vs-web-usage-mining"
source: https://www.bctengineer.com/q/semester_8/information_system/text-mining-vs-web-usage-mining
site: BCT Engineering
---

# Text mining vs web usage mining

Information System · Chapter 7: Web based information system and navigation

- Asked in: 2073 Bhadra, 4 marks
- Video: [Data Mining Lecture - - Advance Topic | Web mining | Text mining (Eng-Hindi)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP_8wK7Ax88) — Well Academy
- Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort) on 2026-10-14
- Page: https://www.bctengineer.com/q/semester_8/information_system/text-mining-vs-web-usage-mining
- Whole chapter: https://www.bctengineer.com/md/semester_8/information_system/chapter-7

## Question

Compare Text mining Vs Web usage mining.

## Answer

**Text mining** extracts useful patterns and knowledge from unstructured text documents (emails, articles, reviews). **Web usage mining** discovers patterns in the way users use websites, from server logs and clickstream data.

| Basis | Text mining | Web usage mining |
|---|---|---|
| **Data used** | Text content of documents | Web server logs, clickstreams, cookies, sessions |
| **Nature of data** | Unstructured natural language | Semi-structured access records |
| **Goal** | Understand meaning and content of text | Understand user behaviour and navigation |
| **Techniques** | NLP, tokenisation, classification, clustering, summarisation, sentiment analysis | Preprocessing, session identification, association rules, sequential patterns, clustering |
| **Part of web mining?** | Related to web content mining but also works on offline text | Is one of three web mining types |
| **Typical output** | Topics, categories, summaries, keywords | Frequent paths, user profiles, popular pages |
| **Applications** | Spam filtering, document classification, opinion mining | Personalisation, recommendation, site redesign, fraud detection |
| **Example** | Finding customer opinion in product reviews | Finding that visitors of page A usually go next to page C |

## Check yourself

The answer's key points as multiple-choice questions, with the correct option and why.

1. What data does web usage mining use?
   A. Unstructured text of documents
   B. Web server logs, clickstreams, cookies and sessions
   C. Hyperlink graph only
   D. Audio files
   Answer: B. Usage mining studies access records of users. (Key point: Data used)

2. Text mining mainly works on which kind of data?
   A. Unstructured natural language text
   B. Server access logs
   C. Router tables
   D. Database indexes
   Answer: A. It extracts patterns from emails, articles and reviews. (Key point: Text mining)

3. What is the goal of web usage mining?
   A. To understand the meaning of text
   B. To compress files
   C. To detect hardware faults
   D. To understand user behaviour and navigation
   Answer: D. Text mining targets meaning; usage mining targets behaviour. (Key point: Goal difference)

4. Finding that visitors of page A usually go next to page C is an example of what?
   A. Text mining
   B. Structure mining
   C. Web usage mining
   D. Image processing
   Answer: C. Frequent navigation paths come from usage mining. (Key point: Example)

## Related in Information System

- [Web mining importance and types](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Aweb-mining-importance-types) — Information System, chapter 7, asked 3×
- [Web mining with structure mining](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Aweb-mining-structure-mining) — Information System, chapter 7
- [Link analysis in web vs cloud](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Alink-analysis-web-vs-cloud) — Information System, chapter 7
- [General vs one-class CF](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Ageneral-vs-one-class-cf) — Information System, chapter 7
- [GFS vs HDFS architecture](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Agfs-vs-hdfs) — Information System, chapter 8

## Related in other subjects

- [Web structure/content/usage mining; privacy](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_7%2Fdata_mining%3Aweb-structure-content-usage-privacy) — Data Mining, chapter 7
- [Web mining, importance and techniques](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_7%2Fdata_mining%3Aweb-mining-importance-techniques) — Data Mining, chapter 7
- [Web log mining and WWW mining architecture](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_7%2Fdata_mining%3Aweb-log-mining-architecture) — Data Mining, chapter 7
- [Web mining structure and challenges](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_7%2Fdata_mining%3Aweb-mining-structure-challenges) — Data Mining, chapter 7