HTTP: The Definitive Guide

The Personal Touch

HTTP began its life as an anonymous, stateless, request/response protocol. A request came from a client, was processed by the server, and a response was sent back to the client. Little information was available to the web server to determine what user sent the request or to keep track of a sequence of requests from the visiting user.

Modern web sites want to provide a personal touch. They want to know more about users on the other ends of the connections and be able to keep track of those users as they browse. Popular online shopping sites like Amazon.com personalize their sites for you in several ways:

Personal greetings

Welcome messages and page contents are generated specially for the user, to make the shopping experience feel more personal.

Targeted recommendations

By learning about the interests of the customer, stores can suggest products that they believe the customer will appreciate. Stores can also run birthday specials near customers’ birthdays and other significant days.

Administrative information on file

Online shoppers hate having to fill in cumbersome address and credit card forms over and over again. Some sites store these administrative details in a database. Once they identify you, they can use the administrative information on file, making the shopping experience much more convenient.

Session tracking

HTTP transactions are stateless. Each request/response happens in isolation. Many web sites want to build up incremental state as you interact with ...