Patent Application
20070266150
For a more complete understanding of the principles disclosure herein, and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
An invention is described for methods and systems for self-checking and identifying errors in an advertisement unit rendered on a web browser. It will be obvious, however, that the present invention may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process operations have not been described in detail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.
As used herein, the Internet or World Wide Web (WWW) uses a hypermedia (i.e., comprising of graphics, audio, video, plain text, hyperlinks, etc.) based system for enabling the browsing of Internet sites. As its name implies, the WWW (i.e., Internet) is made of many websites linked together allowing users to travel from one website to another simply by clicking on hyperlinks. To access the web, a user (i.e., client) typically runs a web browser program (e.g., FIREFOX™, NETSCAPE™, INTERNET EXPLORER™, SAFARI™, OPERA™, CAMINO™, etc.) that assists the user in navigating from among the various websites on the WWW and renders the web pages associated with those websites for viewing by the user.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML), DHTML, Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML), but the language can be applied to any kind of Extensible Markup Language (XML) based document, including Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and XML User Interface Language (XUL). DHTML denotes a collection of technologies used together to create interactive and animated web sites by using a combination of a static markup language (i.e., HTML), a client-side scripting language (such as JAVASCRIPT™), a presentation definition language (i.e., CSS), and a Document Object Model. DHTML based webpages use client-side scripting to change the variables of the presentation definition language (i.e., HTML) to affect the look and function of otherwise “static” HTML page content, after the page has been fully loaded and during the rendering process. An iframe denotes an HTML element that is rendered within another HTML element. Iframes behave much like an inline image in that they allow users to can scroll them in and out of view
Internet advertisements can take any form as along as it can be rendered onto a web browser or equivalent application. Examples include: static graphical banners, interactive polls, interactive games, multimedia clips, etc. Rich-media denotes interactive multimedia web content that includes audio, graphics, image, video and animation in addition to traditional media (text and graphics).
In view of the foregoing, it should therefore be fully appreciated that a variety of Internet advertising content (e.g., animated ads, interactive polls, multi-media ads, etc.) can benefit from the systems and methods described herein.
In step 110, the web server 104 returns a webpage to the web browser 102 along with an ad request script (i.e., ad request code) that is configured to direct the web browser 102 to request an advertisement unit to be sent from the advertisement server 106. Typically, the webpage is requested and served from the web server 104 using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or equivalent communications transmission protocol. In one embodiment, the ad request script is directly embedded within the webpage that is returned to the web browser 102. In another embodiment, the web server 104 delivers an ad server code (served in conjunction with the webpage) that calls for the ad request script to be sent to the web browser 102. The ad request code can be written using a number of different programming languages, the most common of which are JAVASCRIPT™, VBSCRIPT™, and ACTIONSCRIPT™.
In step 112, the webpage is rendered by the web browser 102 and when the ad request script is encountered, the web browser 102 can contact the advertisement server 106 with a request for an advertisement unit. In one embodiment, once the request is received the advertisement server 106 is configured to examine an existing profile of a user associated with the web browser 102 before choosing an appropriate advertisement unit to return back to the web browser 102. Typically, the existing profile contains historical information regarding previous communication sessions between the advertisement server 106 and the user. If a profile does not already exist for the user, the advertisement server 106 is further configured to create a new profile for the user and log the identity of the advertisement unit that is eventually selected and delivered to the user.
In one embodiment, the client profiles are stored in a storage area (e.g., partitioned memory space, extra hard drive, etc.) within the advertisement server 106. In another embodiment, the profiles are stored on an external storage medium (e.g., hard drive, CD-ROM, etc.) that is communicatively linked to the advertisement server 106. Examples of historical information that may impact the advertisement units chosen include: information about advertisement units that have already been sent to the user, information regarding user response to those previous advertisements, and user demographics information.
In another embodiment, once the request is received, the advertisement server 106 is configured to choose an advertisement unit to send based on the content of the webpage that was sent from the web server 104 to the web browser 102. In still another embodiment, the advertisement server 106 is configured to choose an advertisement unit based on historical information and whether the content rating (e.g., G ‘general audience’, PG ‘parental guidance suggested’, PG-13 ‘parental guidance suggested for those under 13 years of age’, and R ‘restricted for those under 17 years of age’, etc.) of the advertisement unit exceeds the content rating level of the web page.
Moving on to step 114, the advertisement server 106 can send the advertisement unit, chosen during step 112, to the web browser 102. In one embodiment, the advertisement unit is created in DHTML format. In another embodiment, the advertisement unit is created in a combination DHTML/CSS format. It should be understood that the advertisement unit can be created in any hypertext markup language format as long as a plug-in is not required in order for the unit to be rendered in a web browser 102.
Embedded within the advertisement unit is an error checking call script that is configured to direct the web browser 102 to request the advertisement server to send an error checking script. In one embodiment, the error checking call script is written in JAVASCRIPT™. In another embodiment, the error checking call script is written in VBSCRIPT™. In still another embodiment, the error checking call script is written in ACTIONSCRIPT™.
In step 116, the advertisement unit is received by the web browser 102 and can be rendered by the same. Typically, this involves the web browser 102 parsing the underlying HTML of the advertisement unit and rendering the unit in accordance with the specifications and instructions set therein.
Continuing on to step 118, when the error checking call script is encountered during the rendering of the advertisement unit, a request can be generated to call for an error checking script to be sent from the advertisement server 106 to the unit. In one embodiment, the error checking script is uniquely associated with the rendered ad unit. That is, the error checking script requested can only be applied to check a rendered advertisement unit with a specific ad unit identification (ID) code. In another embodiment, the error checking script in non-specific to any advertisement unit. That is, the error checking script can be “universally” applied to check any rendered advertisement unit.
In step 120, the advertisement server 106 sends the error checking script to the requesting advertisement unit. Typically, the error checking script is requested and served from the advertisement server 106 using HTTP or equivalent communications transmission protocol.
Proceeding on to step 122, the error checking script is executed to check the advertisement unit for errors. This is done by comparing the physical parameters of the rendered advertisement unit against predicted advertisement unit parameters. Examples of advertisement unit parameters include, but are not limited to: the physical dimensions (i.e., height and width) of the advertisement unit, the position of the advertisement unit relative to other features rendered in the web browser 102, the look and feel of various components (e.g., borders, padding spaces, etc.) of the advertisement unit, etc. It should be appreciated that essentially any aspect of the advertisement unit can be checked by the error checking script as long as that aspect can be translated into a measurable parameter that can be recognized by the error checking script. An error is logged whenever the rendered an ad unit parameter value fails to match its associated predicted ad unit parameter value.
As alluded to above, there are various things the error checking script can check for during the matching operation. In one embodiment, the error checking script can look for items with conflicts that resides on the webpage and adjusts accordingly. This usually happens when there are multiple expanding ad units on a single webpage. In another embodiment, the error checking script can look for all items on the webpage to see if there are things covering the ad unit. This is a real problem on some sites where their malformed CSS layers will cover the advertisement buttons so it can't be clicked on and such.
In still another embodiment, the error checking script catalogs every single visible element and checks their size to make sure they are within specifications. It does this by comparing how big the element is to how much of the element is visible. If the visible area of the element is smaller than the actual size of the element (and it's not by design), the script concludes that something is getting cut-off during rendering or that something else is wrong.
When the error checking script reports back the errors, it reports back with as much information about the user's configuration as it can. Including user's screen width and height, browser type, browser version, OS version, actual URL of the website that was serving the ad that the user was on, etc.
The advertisement server 106 typically does not get alerted for every single error identified by the script (users are bound to have their fonts too big, or have some international language font that's pushing things out, etc.) so only when a predetermined threshold is reached, will the error checking script alert the advertisement server 106. After, either the advertisement server 106 or a system administrator can sift through the report to address the identified problems. That predetermined threshold can be set to anything, a percentage of the impressions that generate an error, a specified error count number reached, etc.
In one embodiment, the advertisement server 106 can automatically classify the errors to indicate their level of severity. In another embodiment, the system administrator reviews the errors logged by the advertisement server 106 and manually classifies them based on severity.
In step 124, all the errors identified by the error checking script are compiled into a report. In one embodiment, the report is sent back to the advertisement server 106 and stored for viewing by a system administrator. In another embodiment, the report is sent back to the advertisement server 106 and processed to supply the advertisement server 106 with the information necessary to create a new advertisement unit that corrects for the errors in the rendered unit.
Examples of the types of errors that can be identified by the error checking script include: misaligned ad unit elements 202 (
Any of the operations that form part of the embodiments described herein are useful machine operations. The invention also relates to a device or an apparatus for performing these operations. The systems and methods described herein can be specially constructed for the required purposes, such as the carrier network discussed above, or it may be a general purpose computer selectively activated or configured by a computer program stored in the computer. In particular, various general purpose machines may be used with computer programs written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may be more convenient to construct a more specialized apparatus to perform the required operations.
The embodiments described herein can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium is any data storage device that can store data, which can thereafter be read by a computer system. Examples of the computer readable medium include hard drives, network attached storage (NAS), read-only memory, random-access memory, CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, magnetic tapes, and other optical and non-optical data storage devices. The computer readable medium can also be distributed over a network coupled computer systems so that the computer readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.
Certain embodiments can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium is any data storage device that can store data, which can thereafter be read by a computer system. Examples of the computer readable medium include hard drives, network attached storage (NAS), read-only memory, random-access memory, CD-ROMs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, magnetic tapes, and other optical and non-optical data storage devices. The computer readable medium can also be distributed over a network coupled computer systems so that the computer readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.
Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail herein, it should be understood, by those of ordinary skill, that the present invention may be embodied in many other specific forms without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Therefore, the present examples and embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details provided therein, but may be modified and practiced within the scope of the appended claims.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/746,959 filed May 10, 2006. The entirety of the disclosure of the above-identified application is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60746959 | May 2006 | US |
