Patent Application
20090024576
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The invention disclosed herein relates generally to prioritizing limited supplies in a limited supplies system. More particularly, the methods, systems and computer media for calculating an Expression of Interest (EOI) term is used in conjunction with a plurality of relevancy factors for prioritizing limited supplies associated with a search query in a limited supply system.
There are many well-known basic web-based content searching techniques, using search engines to search network-available content for items of interest. While originally employed for finding content, such as web pages, articles, images, for example, systems have evolved to provide for additional levels of content searching. One such example is inventory-based searching, such as searching a defined database or databases of a particular inventory of specific items.
One sample type of inventory is commonly referred to as a limited supply system. These systems represent a limited inventory of content elements. For example, a sample limited supply system may be a real estate database that has a limited inventory of available homes or apartments available for rent or sale. A limited supply system is contrast to a standard or unlimited supply system, such as a commercial database that has an almost unlimited inventory amount.
Limited supply systems differ with respect to search technology because there is an upper threshold of effectiveness of search results for these systems. By contrast, an unlimited system benefits from every search result. This can be exemplified by the example of an inventory database for an online merchant, every time a search result returns a listing for a particular item for sale, the merchant has the opportunity to make another sale, and a replacement for the purchased item can be re-ordered to restock the merchant's inventory.
Using the example of a real estate limited supply system, there is a significantly diminished value to the 500th visitor to the content listing compared with the first visitor. Whereas the merchant in the unlimited supply system could potentially sell 500 items to 500 customers, the limited supply system vendor can only sell one house or rent one apartment to one of the any number of potential customers.
The existing systems incorporate techniques to prioritize search result elements, existing search engines fail to account for the differences between limited and unlimited supply systems. As such, both users and content providers experience decreased performance in the presentation of search results for search content and there exists a need for the improved performance in the prioritization of search results for content relating to limited supply systems.
Generally, the present invention provides for the generation of prioritized search results in a limited supply system. As described above, a limited supply system is an inventory having a limited supply of unique content elements. The present invention includes receiving a search request having search request parameters. The search request may be received through the Internet by a search portal and the search parameters may be the search terms submitted by the user.
The present invention further includes determining one or more search result elements for the limited supply system based on the search request parameters, where each of the search result elements indicate a corresponding listing entity. For example, a limited supply system may be a jobs database and the search result elements may be the specific job listings having the potential employer or recruiting agent as the listing entity.
The present invention further includes calculating expression of interest (EOI) terms for each of the search result elements based on search result obligations between the limited supply system and the listing entities. As described in greater detail below, the EOI term relates to the measure of the interaction between a user and a series of one or more actions relative the search result elements of a current search and to previous or future searches. For example, in a limited supply system for employment opportunities, the EOI term may relate to the rate at which a given user clicks and views a particular job listing or the rate at which a given user applies to or not apply to a specific job listing in the current search or in previous searches. In other words, EOI may be fixed on a specific action or intersection of actions to thereby maximize profit, e.g., where a contract pays according to an apply rate, EOI may be tracked in accordance with an apply action.
Thereupon, the present invention includes prioritizing the search result terms based on the corresponding EOI terms. The prioritized search result terms may then be presented to the search requesting entity, the results being prioritized for not only the search requester, but also for the structure of the inventory of the limited supply system.
The invention is illustrated in the figures of the accompanying drawings which are meant to be exemplary and not limiting, in which like references are intended to refer to like or corresponding parts, and in which:
In the following description of the embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration, exemplary embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
The user computer 104 may be any type of suitable computing device. The computer network 106 may be any type of computerized network capable of transferring data such as the Internet. The search content database 110 may be one or more data storage devices of any suitable type, operative to store corresponding data therein. The processing device 112 may be one or more processing elements operative to perform processing operations in response to executable instructions, collectively as a single element or as various processing modules.
In one embodiment, the user 102 operates the user computer 104, which is in communication across the network 106 with the search provider 108. The user 102 inputs a search request having search request parameters into the user computer 104 for searching in a limited supply system, such as, for example, a database of listings associated with employment opportunities or a real estate market. The user computer 104 communicates the search request to the search provider 108 over the computer network 106. The search provider 108 receives the search request and locates search results associated with the search request in the search content database 110. The processing device 112 then sorts and prioritizes the located limited supplies content according to a plurality of factors. The plurality of factors are associated with separate processing elements such as the EOI processing element 114, the CTR/AR processing element 116, the relevance processing element 118, and the other factor processing element 120. As described in further detail below, the processing device 112 may sort and prioritize the located limited supply content according to one or more of these factors. The search provider 108 then displays the prioritized search results for the limited supplies content to the user 102 over the computer network 106 on the user computer 104.
The system 200 provides another embodiment by providing the ability for the search provider 108 to communicate with the other search providers, 202 and 206, and the associated other search content databases, 204 and 208, over the computer network 106 in order for the search provider 108 to locate additional search results associated with the original search request.
The next step, step 304, includes calculating Expression of Interest (EOI) terms for each of the search result elements based on search result obligations between the limited supply system and the listing entity. As described in further detail below in the corresponding descriptions for
The next step, step 306, includes prioritizing the search result terms based on the corresponding EOI terms. As discussed above with respect to
According to one embodiment, the method by which prioritized search results in a limited supply system are generated is to calculate EOI terms for each of the search results based on a search result obligation owed by the search provider to the listing entity where there is a fixed predetermined price per listing.
The next step, step 507, then requires a calculation of the Obligation Outstanding by the search provider, e.g. 108 of
In a first iteration, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
In the event that the Obligation Outstanding is equal for both Company A and Company B, a plurality of secondary factors may be utilized for ordering the search results, such as a click through rate factor or an apply rate factor, determined by the CTR/AR processing element 116 of
As illustrated in
In another embodiment, the method by which prioritized search results in a limited supply system are generated is to calculate EOI terms for each of the search results elements based on a search result obligation owed by the search provider to the listing entity where there is a variable price per listing.
As illustrated in
The next step, step 705, requires a calculation of the Contract Value based upon EOI Next for Company A. The Contract Value based upon EOI next is also calculated for Company B, step 706. In order to calculate the Contract Value based upon EOI Next for each company, it is the quotient of the initial contract value offered by each company and the sum of the Cumulative EOI plus one. The calculation can be expressed by the following formula:
In a first iteration, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
In the event that the Contract Value based upon EOI Next is equal for both Company A and Company B, a plurality of secondary factors may be utilized for ordering the search results similar to those described with respect to
As illustrated in
In another embodiment, the method by which prioritized search results in a limited supply system are generated combine prioritizing search result terms based upon the corresponding EOI terms with prioritizing search results based on additional search priority factors. Additional search priority factors can include a relevance factor, a click through rate factor, an application rate factor or a brand affinity factor. In one example, corresponding EOI terms and additional search priority factors may be used to prioritize job listings search results for an employment opportunity system.
Therefore, the present invention improves performance in the prioritization and presentation of search results for content relating to limited supply systems by generating prioritized search results in a limited supply system by EOI terms for each of the search result elements based on search result obligations between the limited supply system and the listing entities.
The foregoing description of the specific embodiments so fully reveal the general nature of the invention that others can, by applying knowledge within the skill of the relevant art(s) (including the contents of the documents cited and incorporated by reference herein), readily modify and/or adapt for various applications such specific embodiments, without undue experimentation, without departing from the general concept of the present invention. Such adaptations and modifications are therefore intended to be within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodiments, based on the teaching and guidance presented herein. It is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation, such that the terminology or phraseology of the present specification is to be interpreted by the skilled artisan in light of the teachings and guidance presented herein, in combination with the knowledge of one skilled in the relevant art(s).
While various embodiments of the present invention have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example, and not limitation. It would be apparent to one skilled in the relevant art(s) that various changes in form and detail could be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents.
