Data mining is sorting through data to identify patterns and establish relationships.

Data mining parameters include:

• Association - looking for patterns where one event is connected to another event
• Sequence or path analysis - looking for patterns where one event leads to another later event
• Classification - looking for new patterns (May result in a change in the way the data is organized but that's ok)
• Clustering - finding and visually documenting groups of facts not previously known
• Forecasting - discovering patterns in data that can lead to reasonable predictions about the future (This area of data mining is known as predictive analytics.)

Data mining techniques are used in a many research areas, including mathematics, cybernetics, genetics and marketing. Web mining, a type of data mining used in customer relationship management (CRM), takes advantage of the huge amount of information gathered by a Web site to look for patterns in user behavior