This document summarizes a presentation about analyzing and structuring web data to measure the internet economy. It defines the internet economy as online stores, online services, and businesses with websites. Data from 2.5 million Dutch websites was merged with official economic records. Results showed the internet economy accounts for over 1 million businesses and makes up a large portion of the Dutch economy, especially in certain regions. Younger businesses are overrepresented in the internet economy. Future plans include improving methods using machine learning and expanding the study internationally.

1. Parallel session 2: What happens online

2. We index the web and structure the data
Bastiaan Zijlema

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A 5 year old startup with 36 people from Groningen
Who we are

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Who we are
๏ A 5 year ‘old’ startup
After pivoting in 2012 from a diary software company into a data
company we rebranded our company to Dataprovider. It seemed
the best name for our company because it covers what we do.
๏ 36 people with an average age of 27
Dataprovider is a relatively young company with an average age
of 27.
๏ Groningen, Amsterdam and San Fransisco
All our engineers are located in Groningen (Mediacentrale).
This is were most people work and were we develop all our
products and services. Next to Groningen we’re also located in
Amsterdam (TQ). Our San Fransisco office does sales and
customer relations.

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We index the web and structure the data
What we do

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What we do
๏ Index the web and structure the data
Every month we index over 280 million domains from 50
countries. From each website we index 10-20 pages and keep
track of over 150 different variables.
๏ Keep track of changes
Every month we update all our data. Since the beginning of
Dataprovider we store all the changes resulting in 5 years of
history and 3 billion documents.
๏ Deliver to big brands
Our data is a pain killer for big brands. With our data they make
almost real time market analysis, enrich existing customer data
for a better offer and create lead lists

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For Dataprovider a website is like a mini data source
Websites

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Website as a mini data source

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Website as a mini data source

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We structure the websites and create information
Variables

11. Hosting Technical Content eCommerce Marketing
IP Address SEO score Company name Online store
EIVI score
DNS Records Technical evaluation Addresses eCommerce probability
Alexa rank
AS Company Scripting language Phone numbers Shopping Cart System
Estimated site Traffic
Hosting country CMS TAX and Bankdetails Trustmarks
Social Media Usage
SSL Certificate HTML version Company description Delivery Services
Social Media Profiles
Webserver Generators Products and services Payment methods
Live Chat Software
Registrar Mobile version Languages Payment Service providers
Analytics software
Redirect location RSS Feed Number of pages found Currencies
Ad Networks
Load time Login Job openings Average prices
Affiliates
Over 150 variables

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Using Machine Learning to detect e-Commerce Websites
E-Commerce detection

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E-Commerce detection
๏ Labeling websites
Examine websites by hand and label them as e-Commerce or
non-e-Commerce.
๏ Feature selection
Select the features which are distinctive for e-Commerce
websites. (e.g. Shopping cart, Payment methods, Content)
๏ Train the system
Build a statistical model with the labeled websites and selected
features.
๏ Classify each website
Let the model determine if a website is e-Commerce or not.
Provide a score which reflects how certain the model is
(i.e. the chance this website is e-Commerce).

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What can you do with all that data
And then?

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Statistics

17. We index the web and structure the data
Bastiaan Zijlema

19. Measuring the internet
economy with big data
Bastiaan Rooijakkers

20. “What is the importance of the internet
economy to the Dutch economy?”
Four aims:
Determine a pragmatic definition of “the internet economy”
Show the importance and size of the internet economy in NL
Show the possibilities of new measurement methods with big data
Explain differences from regular statistics/concepts
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21. Dataprovider dataset: 2.5 million
Dutch websites
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• Country, address, company name, Chamber of Commerce number, taks number, phone number, e-mail, …..
Business
information
• eCommerce probability, shopping cart software, delivery services, payment methods, products, prices,…
eCommerce
•Title, description, keywords, category,
language, author….Content
•Marketing, social media, links, technical
and hosting information, …Other

22. Definition of the internet economy
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Online stores according
to eCommerce variables
Online services or internet
related ICT according to
keyword analysis
Businesses with a
website that do not
belong to category C, D
or E
Businesses without a
website

23. Merging to the GBR
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24. Merging to the GBR: results
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25. Number of business by internet
category, 2015
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975,000
438,000
68,000
28,500
5,700
16,000

26. Heatmap businesses with website
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27. Distribution of number of
companies, jobs, turnover and
value added
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28. The core of the internet economy
compared to other sectors
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29. Regional distribution
Certain regions are more prominent in the internet economy than others.
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Online stores Online services Internet related ICT

30. Relative age of businesses
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30% 30%

31. Future plans
Improve method by using machine learning/Artificial Intelligence and additional data sources.
Obtain time series for several years
Repeat the study in other countries -> Germany & UK
Turn into regular statistics?
For more information:
https://www.cbs.nl/-/media/_pdf/2016/40/measuring-the-internet-economy.pdf?la=nl-nl
b.rooijakkers@cbs.nl
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