Information preloading strategies for e-government sites based on user's stated preference

Purpose – The paper seeks to improve website performance by developing a specific preloading strategy tuned to the needs of a web server. Applying simple preloading strategies, as used in various operating systems' memory management algorithms, does not suffice when managing websites due to the uncertainty of internet users' behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses rough, or fuzzy, sets as the framework to introduce a website management strategy based on a user's stated preference. This mathematical approach allows the derivation of preloading strategies from uncertain and partially contradicting information generated from site usage statistics.Findings – A paper example of an application of the algorithm is used to illustrate how this approach can be applied to efficiently manage a website.Originality/value – Performance is one of the key issues in managing websites, especially as the internet gains popularity and becomes the common access point for information retrieval. This technique ha...