---
title: "Web mining with structure mining"
subject: "Information System"
chapter: 7
key: "semester_8/information_system:web-mining-structure-mining"
source: https://www.bctengineer.com/q/semester_8/information_system/web-mining-structure-mining
site: BCT Engineering
---

# Web mining with structure mining

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

- Asked in: 2072 Asoj, 5 marks
- Video: [Introduction to Web Mining by Mahesh Huddar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yPfuMdbhq0) — Mahesh Huddar
- Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort) on 2026-10-14
- Page: https://www.bctengineer.com/q/semester_8/information_system/web-mining-structure-mining
- Whole chapter: https://www.bctengineer.com/md/semester_8/information_system/chapter-7

## Question

What do you understand by web mining? Discuss web mining with regard to structure mining.

## Short answer

Web mining applies data mining to extract knowledge from web data. Structure mining analyzes the hyperlink graph (pages as nodes, links as edges) and within-page DOM structure. It uses PageRank and HITS for ranking, community discovery, and detecting spam, improving search relevance.

## Answer

**Web mining** is the use of data mining techniques to automatically discover and extract useful information from web documents and services. It is divided into content mining, structure mining and usage mining.

#### Web structure mining
**Web structure mining** analyses the hyperlink structure of the web (and the structure within a page) to discover useful knowledge. The web is viewed as a directed graph where pages are nodes and hyperlinks are edges.

#### Two kinds
- **Hyperlink (inter-page) structure:** relations between pages through hyperlinks.
- **Document (intra-page) structure:** the tree structure of tags in HTML/XML within a page (DOM tree), used to extract data.

#### Main tasks and algorithms
- **Page ranking:** PageRank scores each page from its in-links and the importance of the linking pages; HITS gives each page an authority score (from in-links) and a hub score (from out-links).
- **Community discovery:** finding groups of pages on the same topic through dense links.
- **Web crawling:** deciding which links to follow first.
- **Classifying and clustering pages** using link patterns.
- **Detecting spam / link farms.**
- **Website structure analysis:** improving navigation and site design.

```text
   [A]---->[B]
    ^       |
    |       v
   [D]<----[C]
```

#### Example
Search engines use structure mining: a page on "data mining" that is linked from many respected university pages gets a high rank for that topic.

#### Advantage and issue
It makes search results more relevant. Limitations: link spam and the large size of the web graph.

## Check yourself

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

1. What does web structure mining analyse?
   A. Only the text of pages
   B. The hyperlink structure of the web, viewed as a directed graph
   C. User login times
   D. Image pixel data
   Answer: B. It treats pages as nodes and hyperlinks as edges. (Key point: Structure mining)

2. What is document (intra-page) structure?
   A. The tree structure of HTML/XML tags in a page (DOM tree)
   B. Links between different websites
   C. The server log of a site
   D. Ratings given by users
   Answer: A. Intra-page structure is the tag tree used to extract data. (Key point: Two kinds)

3. Which is a main task of web structure mining?
   A. Counting words in e-mails
   B. Billing customers
   C. Compressing videos
   D. Page ranking, community discovery, crawling and spam detection
   Answer: D. Link patterns support ranking, communities, crawling priority and link-farm detection. (Key point: Tasks)

4. Why does a 'data mining' page linked by many respected university pages rank high?
   A. Because it has the most images
   B. Because it was created today
   C. Many in-links from respected pages signal importance
   D. Because it has no out-links
   Answer: C. Links from important pages count as strong votes. (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×
- [Text mining vs web usage mining](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Atext-mining-vs-web-usage-mining) — Information System, chapter 7
- [Web structure and search engine](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Aweb-organization-search-engine-working) — Information System, chapter 7
- [Data warehouse and data mining](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Adata-warehouse-data-mining) — Information System, chapter 4, asked 2×
- [Data mining and business knowledge](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_8%2Finformation_system%3Adata-mining-business-knowledge) — Information System, chapter 4

## 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 structure and challenges](https://www.bctengineer.com/question.md?key=semester_7%2Fdata_mining%3Aweb-mining-structure-challenges) — 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