webtrackR (version 0.1.0)

extract_domain: Extract the domain from URL

Description

extract_domain() adds the domain of a URL as a new column. By "domain", we mean the "top private domain", i.e., the domain under the public suffix (e.g., "com") as defined by the Public Suffix List. See details.

Extracts the domain from urls.

Usage

extract_domain(wt, varname = "url", drop_na = TRUE)

Value

webtrack data.table with the same columns as wt and a new column called 'domain'

(or, if varname not equal to 'url', '<varname>_domain')

Arguments

wt

webtrack data object.

varname

character. Name of the column from which to extract the host. Defaults to "url".

drop_na

boolean. Determines whether rows for which no host can be extracted should be dropped from the data. Defaults to TRUE.

Details

We define a "web domain" in the common colloquial meaning, that is, the part of an web address that identifies the person or organization in control. is google.com. More technically, what we mean by "domain" is the "top private domain", i.e., the domain under the public suffix, as defined by the Public Suffix List. Note that this definition sometimes leads to counterintuitive results because not all public suffixes are "registry suffixes". That is, they are not controlled by a domain name registrar, but allow users to directly register a domain. One example of such a public, non-registry suffix is blogspot.com. For a URL like www.mysite.blogspot.com, our function, and indeed the packages we are aware of, would extract the domain as mysite.blogspot.com, although you might think of blogspot.com as the domain. For details, see here

Examples

if (FALSE) {
data("testdt_tracking")
wt <- as.wt_dt(testdt_tracking)
# Extract domain and drop rows without domain
wt <- extract_domain(wt)
# Extract domain and keep rows without domain
wt <- extract_domain(wt, drop_na = FALSE)
}