Patent Application
20080086372
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not intended to be limited by the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:
In embodiments described in detail below, a system and method to facilitate display of advertising information contextually related to web pages requested by users within a network are described. A typical content management system includes various high-interest vertical properties, each property being related to a predetermined content area, such as, for example, “Music” and/or “Automobiles.” Within each property, the system provides content and associated advertising information to users interested in the specific content area. However, the inventory of advertising slots within each web page is limited, as is the number of times each advertisement may be shown to the users within each corresponding advertising slot. Thus, advertiser entities usually compete for advertising slots within such vertical properties.
The content management system also includes various low-interest properties, each property being related to one or more content areas, such as, for example, “News,” “Groups,” “Blogs,” and others. The embodiments described in detail below enable the system to increase the inventory of vertically-focused advertising slots related to the high-interest properties by identifying areas within the low-interest properties, which are contextually related to the corresponding content areas of the high-interest vertical properties. In addition, the embodiments described in detail below enable the system to increase the value of the non-vertical inventory through its association with the vertically-focused inventory of advertising slots.
In one embodiment, the entity 100 includes one or more front-end web servers 102, such as, for example, page servers (not shown), which deliver web pages to multiple users, (e.g., markup language documents), search servers (not shown), which handle search requests to the entity 100, and communication servers (not shown), that provide, inter alia, automated communications to/from users of the entity 100, namely, electronic mail (email) servers, which provide automated email communications to/from users, and/or real-time communication servers, such as servers providing instant messaging (IM) functionality. The entity 100 may also include any number of additional web servers, such as, for example, picture servers (not shown), which dynamically deliver images to be displayed within the web pages, and content servers (not shown), which dynamically deliver content information to the users, and other servers, which provide an intelligent interface to the back-end of the entity 100.
The entity 100 further includes one or more back-end servers, for example, processing servers 104, advertising servers 106, and database servers 108, each of which maintaining and facilitating access to one or more respective storage modules 112, 114.
In one embodiment, the processing servers 104 are coupled to the data storage module 112, such as, for example a database, which in turn is further coupled to a categorizer module 110 configured to categorize web pages according to one or more categories, and to store the categorized web pages within the data storage module 112, as described in further detail below. The advertising servers 106 are coupled to the advertising storage module 114, such as, for example, a second database, and are configured to select and transmit content, such as, for example, graphical banner advertisements, sponsor links, integrated links, and other types of advertising content, to users via the network 120, and to process advertising offers received at the entity 100, as described in further detail below.
In one embodiment, the advertising storage module 114 stores advertisements submitted by one or more advertiser entities 140 through the network 120 and the front-end advertising interface servers 116, such as, for example, contextual graphical advertisements (e.g., images, multimedia, flash ads, etc.). Initially, each advertiser entity 140 communicates with the advertising interface servers 116 and the advertising servers 106 and submits advertising offers for various properties within the entity 100.
For example, an advertiser entity 140 may offer a predetermined amount for a set number of impressions in a vertical property related to a specific content area such as, for example, “Music.” The advertiser entity 140 may further offer a predetermined lower amount for a set number of impressions in a low-interest property related to “News,” for example, and may specify a target category of interest within the “News” property, such as, for example, the “Music” category. The offers and associated advertisements are then stored within the advertising storage module 114. Thus, if a user requests a music-related web page, the advertising servers 106 may select and serve advertisements for the music-related vertical property up to the set number of impressions, and may also serve advertisements in the music-related pages of the “News” low-interest property, as specified by the advertiser entity 140.
In an alternate embodiment, an advertiser entity 140 may specify a geographical target category within the “News” property, indicating, for example, that advertisements should be selected and served for users accessing the entity 100 from a particular geographical region.
Referring back to
In one embodiment, the page category tables 152 may contain, for example, multiple categories used to group the web pages accessed by the processing servers 104 and/or by the categorizer module 110. The categories stored within the page category tables 152 are further organized into a hierarchical taxonomy, which is reviewed, edited, and updated automatically by the categorizer module 110, or, in the alternative, manually by editors and/or other third-party entities. For example, the taxonomy may comprise a high-level category for “music,” and several sub-categories, located hierarchically below the “music” category, and illustrating different genres of music. However, it is to be understood that any other representation of a taxonomy used to classify subject matter may be used, without deviating from the spirit or scope of the invention. In an alternate embodiment, the assigned categories may not be mapped into a hierarchical taxonomy and may instead be stored as a collection of categories within the database 112.
Similarly, the page tables 154 may store web page information related to the web pages, and the page content tables 156 may contain, for example, content associated with the web pages. For example, a “Music” page category stored within the tables 152 may be linked to various music-related web pages stored within the tables 154 and may also be linked to corresponding content stored within the tables 156.
It is to be understood that the database 112 may include any of a number of additional tables, which may also be shown to be linked to the page category tables 152, the page tables 154, and the page content tables 156, such as, for example, user tables (not shown), which store records for each entity or user of the entity 100.
In one embodiment, the categorizer module 110 receives web page information, such as, for example, the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of each web page and content associated with each web page from the web servers 102, analyzes the URL and the associated content, and categorizes each web page according to one or more categories stored within the page category tables 152. Subsequently, the categorizer module 110 stores the corresponding web page information into the page tables 154, and the associated content information into the page content tables 156.
In one embodiment, the advertisement category tables 162 may contain, for example, multiple advertising categories used to group the graphical advertisements received from the advertiser entities 140. The categories stored within the advertisement category tables 162 are further organized into a hierarchical taxonomy, which is reviewed, edited, and updated automatically by the advertising servers 106, or, in the alternative, manually by editors and/or other third-party entities. For example, the taxonomy may comprise a high-level category for “music,” and several sub-categories, located hierarchically below the “music” category, and illustrating different genres of music. However, it is to be understood that any other representation of a taxonomy used to classify subject matter may be used, without deviating from the spirit or scope of the invention. In an alternate embodiment, the assigned categories may not be mapped into a hierarchical taxonomy and may instead be stored as a collection of categories within the database 114.
Similarly, the advertisement tables 164 may store the graphical advertisements received from the advertiser entities 140, and the advertisement content tables 166 may contain, for example, content associated with the received graphical advertisements. It is to be understood that the database 114 may include any number of additional tables, which may also be shown to be linked to the advertisement category tables 162, the advertisement tables 164, and the advertisement content tables 166.
In one embodiment, the advertising servers 106 receive graphical advertisements from one or more advertiser entities 140. The advertising servers 106 further analyze a set of parameters associated with each graphical advertisement, such as, for example, the title of the advertisement, the description of the advertisement and any associated keywords, the name of the advertiser entity 140 that submitted the graphical advertisement, the landing web page of the advertisement, and the content of the advertisement, as well as other parameters related to the graphical advertisement, and categorize each graphical advertisement according to one or more advertising categories stored within the advertising category tables 162. In one embodiment, the advertising categories are identical with the web page categories stored within the page category tables 152.
Subsequently, in one embodiment, the advertising servers 106 store the corresponding graphical advertisement information into the advertisement tables 164, and the associated content information into the advertisement content tables 166. In an alternate embodiment, the advertiser entity 140 may indicate the specific category or categories associated with a graphical advertisement transmitted to the entity 100. Thus, the advertising servers 106 use the category information to categorize the received graphical advertisement without the need to analyze the set of parameters associated with the advertisement.
In one embodiment, at block 220, the web servers 102 within the entity 100 receive the web page request and further retrieve the web page and associated content from the corresponding page tables 154 and page content tables 156 within the database 112.
At block 230, the web servers 102 transmit the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the requested web page to the back-end processing servers 104.
At block 240, the processing servers 104 receive the URL of the requested web page and further access the database 112 to retrieve one or more categories associated with the web page based on the context of the web page. In one embodiment, the processing servers 104 search the hierarchical taxonomy stored within the page category tables 152 of the database 112 for categories that most closely match the context of the web page and retrieve one or more categories. In one embodiment, the processing servers 104 further select a most significant category from the retrieved categories, such as, for example, a “Music” category for the requested web page. In an alternate embodiment, the processing servers 104 may retain all retrieved categories for further processing.
In one embodiment, at block 250, the processing servers 104 transmit the web page URL and the retrieved category to the advertising servers 106. In an alternate embodiment, the processing servers 104 may forward all retrieved categories to the advertising servers 106.
At block 260, the advertising servers 106 access the database 114 and use the category information and the related URL of the web page to retrieve matching advertising information from the corresponding advertisement category tables 162, advertisement tables 164, and advertisement content tables 166 within the database 114, such as, for example, graphical advertisements related to the most significant “Music” category offered by the advertiser entity 140. In alternate embodiments, the advertising servers 106 may retrieve graphical advertisements related to each category received from the processing servers 104 and/or may select graphical advertisements according to the inventory of available advertisements.
In one embodiment, at block 270, the advertising servers 106 transmit the retrieved advertising information to the web servers 102. Finally, at block 280, the web servers 102 communicate with the client machine 132 via the network 120 and transmit the requested web page, the related content, and associated graphical advertisements to the client machine 132 for further display on the client program 130.
In one embodiment, at block 320, the web servers 102 within the entity 100 receive the web page request and further retrieve the web page and associated content from the corresponding page tables 154 and page content tables 156 within the database 112.
At block 330, the web servers 102 transmit the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the requested web page to the back-end processing servers 104. In one embodiment, the processing servers 104 receive the URL of the requested web page and further transmit, at block 335, a real-time request to the categorizer module 110 to provide one or more page categories associated with the requested web page based on the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the web page.
At block 340, the categorizer module 110 receives the URL of the requested web page and analyzes the content in real-time to extract the context of the web page. In one embodiment, the categorizer module 110 employs previously stored parser entities to parse the URL in real-time and to determine associated web page context information, such as, for example, music-related events.
At block 350, the categorizer module 110 accesses the database 112 in real-time to retrieve one or more page categories from the hierarchical taxonomy stored within the page category tables 152. In one embodiment, the categorizer module 110 searches the hierarchical taxonomy stored within the page category tables 152 of the database 112 for categories that most closely match the extracted context of the web page and retrieves one or more categories. Furthermore, in one embodiment, the categorizer module 110 selects a most significant category from the retrieved categories, such as, for example, a “Music” category, for the requested web page, and transmits in real-time, at block 360, the selected category to the processing servers 104.
In an alternate embodiment, the categorizer module 110 matches a category with the extracted content without accessing the database 112 and forwards the category in real-time to the processing servers 104. In another alternate embodiment, the categorizer module 110 may retain all retrieved page categories and transmit the categories to the processing servers 104 for further processing.
In one embodiment, at block 370, the processing servers 104 receive the page category from the categorizer module 110 and further transmit the web page URL and the retrieved category to the advertising servers 106. In an alternate embodiment, the processing servers 104 may forward all retrieved categories to the advertising servers 106.
At block 380, the advertising servers 106 access the corresponding tables within the database 114 and use the category information and the related URL to retrieve matching advertising information from the database 114, such as, for example, graphical advertisements related to the most significant “Music” category, which were previously presented and stored by the advertiser entity 140. In alternate embodiments, the advertising servers 106 may retrieve graphical advertisements related to each category received from the processing servers 104 and/or may select graphical advertisements according to the inventory of available advertisements.
In one embodiment, at block 390, the advertising servers 106 transmit the retrieved advertising information to the web servers 102. Finally, at block 395, the web servers 102 communicate with the client machine 132 via the network 120 and transmit the requested web page, the related content, and associated graphical advertisements to the client machine 132 for further display on the client program 130.
At processing block 420, the web page and associated content information are retrieved from a database. At processing block 430, one or more categories associated with the web page are retrieved from a database based on the context information of the requested web page. At processing block 440, advertisements related to the URL of the web page and the associated page category/categories are retrieved from a database. Finally, at processing block 450, the web page, the associated content information, and the related advertisements are transmitted to the user for further display on the user's client machine.
At processing block 520, the web page and associated content information are retrieved from a database. At processing block 530, the content of the web page is analyzed in real-time to extract context information related to the web page.
At processing block 540, one or more categories associated with the web page are retrieved in real-time from a database based on the extracted context information. Alternatively, the category or categories associated with the web page are ascertained in real-time based on the extracted context information without accessing the database.
At processing block 550, advertisements related to the URL of the web page and the associated page category/categories are retrieved from a database. Finally, at processing block 560, the web page, the associated content information, and the related advertisements are transmitted to the user for further display on the user's client machine.
The computer system 600 includes a processor 602, a main memory 604 and a static memory 606, which communicate with each other via a bus 608. The computer system 600 may further include a video display unit 610 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 600 also includes an alphanumeric input device 612 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device 614 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 616, a signal generation device 618 (e.g., a speaker), and a network interface device 620.
The disk drive unit 616 includes a machine-readable medium 624 on which is stored a set of instructions (i.e., software) 626 embodying any one, or all, of the methodologies described above. The software 626 is also shown to reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 604 and/or within the processor 602. The software 626 may further be transmitted or received via the network interface device 620.
It is to be understood that embodiments of this invention may be used as or to support software programs executed upon some form of processing core (such as the CPU of a computer) or otherwise implemented or realized upon or within a machine or computer readable medium. A machine readable medium includes any mechanism for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine readable medium includes read-only memory (ROM); random access memory (RAM); magnetic disk storage media; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); or any other type of media suitable for storing or transmitting information.
In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative sense rather than a restrictive sense.
