GB2543497A - Method for providing candidate domain names - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method and a system for providing candidate domain names, whereby a candidate domain name is comprised of at least a Top Level Domain and a Second Level Domain. The method comprises the steps of receiving (100) information from a customer or a prospect customer (UE1, UE2) concerning one or more of customer location, service location, service type, pre-registered domain names, preferred domain name, customer data, postal code, country code, venue, customer interests on services; evaluating (200) the received information, whereby evaluation leads to first candidate domain names, the evaluation encompassing scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Top Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name, whereby the candidate domain names are based on the received information; checking (300) the candidate domain names regarding availability; and determining (400) one or more of said available candidate domain names for selection by said customer.

Description

1&1 Internet SE

Method for providing candidate domain names Background of the Invention A network is a collection of links and nodes (e.g., multiple computers and/or other devices connected together) arranged so that information may be passed from one part of the network to another over multiple links and through various nodes. Examples of networks include the Internet, the public switched telephone network, the global Telex network, computer networks (e.g., an intranet, an extranet, a local-area network, or a wide-area network), wired networks, and wireless networks.

The Internet is a worldwide network of computers and computer networks arranged to allow easy and robust exchange of information between computer users. Hundreds of millions of people and machines around the world have access to computers connected to the Internet via Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Content providers place multimedia information (e.g., text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and other forms of data) at specific locations on the Internet referred to as web-sites. The combination of all the websites and their corresponding web pages on the Internet is generally known as the World Wide Web (WWW) or simply the Web.

For Internet users and businesses alike, the Internet continues to be increasingly valuable. More people use the Web for everyday tasks, from social networking, shopping, banking, and paying bills to consuming media and entertainment. E-commerce is growing, with businesses delivering more services and content across the Internet, communicating and collaborating online, and inventing new ways to connect with each other.

Prevalent on the Web are multimedia websites, some of which may offer and sell goods and services to individuals and organizations. Websites may consist of a single webpage, but typically consist of multiple interconnected and related web pages. Websites, unless extremely large and complex or have unusual traffic demands, typically reside on a single server and are prepared and maintained by a single individual or entity. Menus and links may be used to move between different web pages within the website or to move to a different website as is known in the art. The interconnectivity of web pages enabled by the Internet can make it difficult for Internet users to tell where one website ends and another begins.

Websites may be created using HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to generate a standard set of tags that define how the web pages for the website are to be displayed. Users of the Internet may access content providers' websites using software known as an Internet browser. After the browser has located the desired webpage, it requests and receives information from the webpage, typically in the form of an HTML document, and then displays the webpage content for the user. The user then may view other web pages at the same website or move to an entirely different website using the browser.

Some Internet users, typically those that are larger and more sophisticated, may provide their own hardware, software, and connections to the Internet. But many Internet users either do not have the resources available or do not want to create and maintain the infrastructure necessary to host their own websites. To assist such individuals (or entities), hosting companies exist that offer website hosting services. These hosting providers typically provide the hardware, software, and electronic communication means necessary to connect multiple websites to the Internet. A single hosting provider may literally host thousands of websites on one or more hosting servers.

Browsers are able to locate specific websites because each website, resource, and computer on the Internet has a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address. Presently, there are two standards for IP addresses. The older IP address standard, often called IP Version 4 (IPv4), is a 32-bit binary number, which is typically shown in dotted decimal notation, where four 8-bit bytes are separated by a dot from each other (e.g., 64.202.167.32). The notation is used to improve human readability. The newer IP address standard, often called IP Version 6 (IPv6) or Next Generation Internet Protocol (IPng), is a 128-bit binary number. The standard human readable notation for IPv6 addresses presents the address as eight 16-bit hexadecimal words, each separated by a colon (e.g., 2EDC: BA98:0332:0000:CF8A:000C:21 54:7313). IP addresses, however, even in human readable notation, are difficult for people to remember and use. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is much easier to remember and may be used to point to any computer, directory, or file on the Internet. A browser is able to access a website on the Internet through the use of a URL. The URL may include a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request combined with the web-site's Internet address, also known as the website's domain name. An example of a URL with a HTTP request and domain name is: http://www.companyname.com. In this example, the "http" identifies the URL as a HTTP request and the "companyname.com" is the domain name.

Within the Internet it is a common procedure to utilize names instead of discrete numbers for providing services as domain names are much easier to remember than their corresponding IP addresses. This naming allows also that multiple services of differing domain names may be provided by a single hardware machine. Typically the domain naming is in conformity with RFC 1034 and RFC 1035 and/or other Recommendations.

Atypical address example of a domain name might comprise "1and1 .com". In this example, the address is composed of a so-called top-level domain "com" and a so-called second-level-domain "1and1". There are higher level domains, such as third level-domains, as well as type of service indications may also form part of a complete address but for the understanding of the invention they will not be necessary. Typically, the top-level domains are not freely selectable but only a limited number of top-level-domains are available. Typically a top-level-domain indicates e.g. a country code such as "de" or "uk", or a generic code such as "com" or "net" or "org", a geographical code such as "bayern" or "NYC" or type of service provided by a content provider such as "restaurant" or "lawyer" or "shop" to name only a few. Domain names are not case sensitive, i.e. "NYC" and "nyc" refer to the same domain name. In contrast to the limited number of top-level-domain names, the second-level-domain-name may be chosen almost arbitrarily. The only physical existing restriction is that a domain name composed of a second-level-domain and a top-level-domain must be unique.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approves some Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) and delegates the responsibility to a particular organization (a "registry") for maintaining an authoritative source for the registered domain names within a Top Level Domain (TLD) and their corresponding IP addresses. For certain TLDs (e.g., .biz, .info, .name, and .oig) the registry is also the authoritative source for contact information related to the domain name and is referred to as a "thick" registry. For other TLDs (e.g., .com and .net) only the domain name, registrar identification, and name server information is stored within the registry, and a registrar is the authoritative source for the contact information related to the domain name. Such registries are referred to as "thin" registries. Most gTLDs are organized through a central domain name Shared Registration System (SRS) based on their TLD.

The process for registering a domain name with .com, .net, .org, and some other TLDs allows an Internet user to use an ICANN-accredited registrar to register their domain name.

For example, if an Internet user, John Doe, wishes to register the domain name "john-doe.com," John Doe may initially determine whether the desired domain name is available by contacting a domain name registrar. The Internet user may make this contact using the registrar's webpage and typing the desired domain name into a field on the registrar's webpage created for this purpose. Upon receiving the request from the Internet user, the registrar may ascertain whether "john-doe.com" has already been registered by checking the SRS database associated with the TLD of the domain name. The results of the search then may be displayed on the webpage to thereby notify the Internet user of the availability of the domain name. If the domain name is available, the Internet user may proceed with the registration process. If the domain name is not available for registration, the Internet user may keep selecting alternative domain names until an available domain name is found.

In the past it has always been a problem to find a free domain name that is still available for registration. Therefore, machines were engineered allowing to fill-in a second-level-domain and receiving an indication which top-level-domain would be available for combination.

Nevertheless the process of finding a suitable name for a service by a user has been tedious.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a new method allowing the user to arrive faster at a suitable domain name for his service.

Short description of the Invention

The object is solved by a method for providing candidate domain names, whereby a candidate domain name is comprised of at least a Top Level Domain (TLD) and a Second Level Domain (SLD). The method comprises a step of receiving information from a customer or a prospect customer concerning one or more of customer location, service location, service type, pre-registered domain names, preferred domain name, customer data, postal code, country code, venue, customer interests on services. The method also comprises a step of evaluating the received information, whereby evaluation leads to first candidate domain names, the evaluation encompassing scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Top Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name, whereby the candidate domain names are based on the received information. In addition the method comprises also the step of checking the candidate domain names regarding availability, and a step of determining one or more of said available candidate domain names for selection by said customer.

The problem is solved as well by a corresponding system.

Further advantageous embodiments are subject to the detailed description as well as to the dependent claims.

Brief description of the drawings

In the following reference will be made towards the figures. In these Fig. 1 shows a general set-up, in which embodiments of the invention may be employed. Fig. 2 shows a schematic flowchart of embodiments according to the invention, and Fig. 3 shows an aspect of the flowchart in greater detail.

Detailed Description

The present disclosure describes preferred embodiments with reference to the Figures, in which like reference signs represent the same or similar elements. Reference throughout this specification to "one embodiment," "an embodiment," or similar language means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases "in one embodiment," "in an embodiment," and similar language throughout this specification may, but do not necessarily, all refer to the same embodiment.

The described features, structures, or characteristics of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the description, numerous specific details are recited to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention. I.e., unless indicated as alternative only any feature of an embodiment may also be utilized in another embodiment.

In addition, even though at some occurrences certain features will be described with reference to a single entity, such a description is for illustrative purpose only and actual implantations of the invention may also comprise one or more of these entities. I.e. usage of singular also encompasses plural entities unless indicated.

In Figure 1 an exemplary system is shown in which the invention may be embodied. There, a customer or a prospect customer may contact via e.g. a smart phone UE1 or any kind of computing device UE2 a server SERV. The smart phone UE1 and /or the computing device may (logically) be connected towards the server SERV by the Internet as detailed above. Although in the following we will refer to a single server SERV only, it may be envisaged and is understood by a person skilled in the art, that the Server SERV may actually be embodied in a server farm and that even more some or more steps described below may be performed by a specialized server. I.e. the terminology of a server does not exclude that some steps may be performed by another server.

Typically a customer or a prospect customer will start at a WWW-Page provided by the Server SERV. The WWW-Page provided may offer to enter certain details such as a preferred secondary domain name. Alternatively or in addition the Server SERV may also evaluate other data as will also be detailed in the following.

In a step 100 (as detailed in figure 2) such information concerning one or more of customer location, service location, service type, pre-registered domain names, preferred domain name, customer data, postal code, country code, venue, customer interests on services is received by the Server SERV.

Once such information is received in step 100, evaluation may commence in a step 200. It is to be understood that any kind of information as detailed above may start evaluation independently. I.e. any information may lead to a different result in evaluation. Therefore, results pertaining to different information may be combined afterwards or may enhance the evaluation when being commonly evaluated as will be detailed later.

In Figure 3, it is assumed that information is received in a step 100. Once the information is evaluated in a step 200, it is checked in a step 250 whether further information was received and whether the information is already processed. If further information was received, the process will loop again to step 200. The further information will now be processed in an evaluation step 200 (either independently or together with the already received information). If no further information is available, the check in step 250 will be negative and the process will move on to step 300.

An evaluation of information (200) leads to none, one or more first candidate domain name(s).The evaluation encompasses scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Top Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name, whereby the candidate domain names are based on the received information. E.g. depending on the information provided by the customer or gathered in connection with the customer, a scoring is performed e.g. based on the indicated service location. E.g. if a customer enters hotel Paris, the evaluation may evaluate that "hotel" and/or "Paris" may be related to travelling and may therefore propose top level domains based on this evaluation, e.g. "reisen", ".international", ".club", "holiday". I.e. based on information relating to a Second Level Domain, one or more top level domain candidates may be determined. Obviously such location information may also be determined by IP addresses, browser settings, cookies, customer data such as postal code and/or country, etc. E.g. for a customer having a location in London it would make sense to suggest also ".london" as candidate top level domain name.

The candidate domain names may be provided as a (ordered) list, whereby candidate names may be ordered according to their scoring.

Once one or more the candidate domain names are available, the scored candidate domain name(s) are checked either individually or collectively in a step 300 with respect to their availability. I.e. it is checked whether a respective candidate domain name is already registered with respect to a certain top level domain. Depending on the assortment of top level domains provided by a server SERV, this process may be repeated for each top level domain. E.g. in Figure 1, data for a first top level domain may be provided by database DB1, whereas data for another top level domain may be provided by database DB2.

Only those candidate domain names which are available, i.e. those candidate domain names which are not yet registered are determined in a step 400 as available candidate domain names and only those will be provided for selection by said customer or prospect customer. Obviously, it may also be envisaged to indicate that a certain candidate domain name is not available for registration, e.g. to enable a customer or prospect customer to evaluate whether such a registration may make sense in view of future development. E.g. suppose that the available candidate domain names for a customer are beer.de, beer.bavaria, beer.eu and beer.shop and the candidate domain name beer.eu would not be available, than it would constitute a valuable information to know that this domain is not available if he forecasts a market penetration including whole Europe.

Obviously the steps of receiving information and providing certain candidate domain names may be embodied via one or more interfaces towards the connecting network known as internet. Such interface (I/O) may be any kind of suitable interface device such as an Ethernet controller, modem, etc.

The evaluation as well as the checking and determination may be performed by one and the same entity such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU). Obviously, as detailed above, any step may also be performed by a respective server.

In a further embodiment the step of evaluation (200) encompasses scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Second Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name. E.g., in the example above relating to "hotel" and "paris", the information relating to customer or prospect customer may also take a location into account. Suppose that the customers IP and/or language preferences set in his browser suggests that the customer is located in Germany, than it would make sense to suggest ".reisen" as a candidate top level domain name. However, if a customer is not located in a German speaking country, such a suggestion might not be of interest. E.g., if the same customer would be identified to be located in Spain, than it would make sense to suggest ".viajes"

In a further embodiment the step of evaluation 200 encompasses concatenations of received information within the Second Level Domain Portions of each candidate domain name, whereby said concatenation is performed according to preferences and/or linguistic constraints in a target language. E.g. in the example above relating to "hotel" and "paris" a customer from the United States of America might receive as a candidate Second Level Domain name "hotelparis" as usage of hyphens within domain names is rare, whereas a customer from Germany might receive "hotel-paris" as a candidate Second Level Domain name "hotel-paris" as usage of hyphens within domain names is rather common.

In a further embodiment the step of evaluation 200 encompasses concatenations of received information within the Second Level Domain Portions of each candidate domain name, whereby said concatenation is performed according to preferences and/or linguistic constraints in a target language. E.g. if a customer provides "rododendro-ldn.co.uk" as information and is e.g. London based, than the information evaluation may lead to "london" as a candidate top level domain name. I.e. information "Idn" is interpreted in the light of the location information as referring to London, whereas at the same time "Idn" may be removed from the portion providing information for a candidate Second Level Domain name.

In a further embodiment the step of evaluation 200 comprises variations of the Top Level Domain based on similarities to the received Top Level Domain.

Similar, if the information provided is "rododendro.lawyer", evaluation may lead to ".lawyer", ".legal", "attorney" as candidate top level domain name. E.g. a certain proposed top level domain included in the information provided by the customer is varied. Such variations may be performed on basis of a thesaurus.

Obviously such variations are not limited to the candidate top level domain name portion but may alternatively or in addition be employed with respect to the Second Level Domain name portion. E.g. if the information "avenida 21" and "restaurant" is entered and a location "Barcelona" is retrieved, evaluation may lead to "avenida21 .cat" as Barcelona is the main city of Catalonia and/or "avendia21 .restaurant" and/or "avendia21-bcn.com" based on the common abbreviation "ben" for Barcelona and/or "restaurant-avenida21 .barcelona".

Likewise if the information provided by the customer relates to a product or service than evaluation may lead to a corresponding candidate top level domain name. E.g. if the customer or prospect customer enters "rododendro.com" the top Level Domain provided indicates that a certain product may be sold and hence evaluation may also offer "shop" and/or "store" or the like as candidate top level domain names.

Note, even though so far customer information relating to a location has mainly be described to affect evaluation of the candidate top level domain name, it may also affect either in addition or as alternative candidate Second Level Domain names. E.g. assume that a customer is located in Munich and has entered "hotel" and "paris", evaluation may also lead to "hotel-paris-munich.de", whereas for a customer is located in Las Vegas evaluation may lead to "hotel-paris-vegas.com". Entered terms may get abbreviated, e.g. "Las Vegas" may get abbreviated to "vegas".

In addition it may also be foreseen that evaluation leads to a prefix or suffix which is based on a location or other information but does not refer to the location. E.g., for US based customer entering "rododendro.com" as information, evaluation may lead to "my-rododendro.com", whereas for a European customer entering the same information, evaluation might lead to "rododendro24.com" or "rododendro-online.com". I.e. depending on some information evaluation leads to a prefix such as "my-" or a suffix such as "-online" or "24".

Obviously, such evaluation may also combine the above approaches such that not only a candidate top level domain name is affected but also a candidate Second Level Domain name. E.g., "hotel" and "paris" as information provided by a customer and taking into account location information may lead in the case of a customer located in New York to a candidate domain name "thehotelparis.nyc", whereas a customer located in London evaluation may lead York to a candidate domain name "hotelparis4u.london".

In a further embodiment, when the received information comprises a preferred domain name the step of evaluation comprises a decomposition of the preferred domain name such that decomposed parts may form a Top Level Domain or be related to a Top Level Domain and/or a Second Level Domain part of one or more candidate domain name. E.g. when a customer enters "choosespain.com" the concatenation may be decomposed into its constituting parts, e.g. choose Spain within the evaluation process. Such decomposition may be based on a dictionary which may be selected based on location information.

In addition a Server SERV may also learn from the information gathered from customers and their choices preferences which may be used in future scorings and evaluations. E.g. the system may learn that e.g. legal practitioners also tend to register ".expert", whereas hotel proprietors tend to register also "travel". Also certain Top Level Domains tend to be accompanied by other Top Level Domain names. Obviously certain type of services may also lead to a certain number of preferred top level domain names, such as eshops tend to register shop or boutique.

In an even more sophisticated approach the step of evaluation 200 is based on information related to an existing web-site. Such information may be included in the text intended for display or included in media content intended for display or it may also included meta tags or any other information included for optimizing searches or display. E.g. if an existing web-page such as "avenida21 .es" is provided as information by a customer than it may be evaluated that one or more pages pertaining to said web-site comprises the term restaurant and Logrono and therefore "restaurant-logrono.es" may be evaluated as a candidate domain name.

Obviously any such data may also be gathered from existing customer data so that a customer may be offered with further domain names based on the same approach as outlined above.

As stated above an aspect of the invention is related to the extraction of location information and its usage for evaluating candidate domain names. Such an extraction of location information may as well encompass that it is deduced that a certain IP is related to a certain venue. This is particularly valuable when a customer is accessing the system via e.g. a WiFi connection. E.g. if the location allows for assigning a certain venue such as a museum than a candidate domain name may be evaluated comprising the term "art" or "gallery" as top level domain name and/or as portion of the Second Level Domain name.

Having concluded evaluation, checking and determination as detailed above, the customer or prospectus customer may select one or more of the determined available candidate domain names.

Consequently such selection may be used within an eshop allowing ordering said candidate domain names individually or as a package.

As it is apparent to a person skilled in the art, the above described invention may be embodied in one or more computer programs which when operate instruct conventional computer hardware to act accordingly. I.e. by use of the invention the process of finding a free domain-name which suits a customer is simplified allowing for a quick match of a suitable domain name.

Therefore the time to service is dramatically reduced.

Claims (18)

Claims

1. A method for providing candidate domain names, whereby a candidate domain name is comprised of at least a Top Level Domain and a Second Level Domain, comprising the steps of: receiving (100) information from a customer or a prospect customer (UE1, UE2) concerning one or more of customer location, service location, service type, preregistered domain names, preferred domain name, customer data, postal code, country code, venue, customer interests on services, evaluating (200) the received information, whereby evaluation leads to first candidate domain names, the evaluation encompassing scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Top Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name, whereby the candidate domain names are based on the received information, checking (300) the candidate domain names regarding availability, and determining (400) one or more of said available candidate domain names for selection by said customer.

2. The method according to claim 1, whereby the step of evaluation (200) encompasses scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Second Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name.

3. The method according to any preceding claim, whereby the step of evaluation (200) encompasses concatenations of received information within the Second Level Domain Portions of each candidate domain name, whereby said concatenation is performed according to preferences and/or linguistic constraints in a target language.

4. The method according to any preceding claim, whereby a customer location is acquired by means of one or more of IP, Browser language, cookies, customer data, postal code, and/or country code.

5. The method according to any preceding claim, whereby when the received information comprises a preferred domain name the step of evaluation comprises a decomposition of the preferred domain name such that decomposed parts may form a Top Level Domain or be related to a Top Level Domain and/or a Second Level Domain part of one or more candidate domain name.

6. The method according to any preceding claim, whereby the received information is exchanged by related information.

7. The method according to any preceding claim, whereby the step of evaluation (200) comprises variations of the Top Level Domain based on similarities to the received Top Level Domain.

8. The method according to any preceding claim, whereby the step of evaluation (200) is based on information related to an existing web site.

9. The method according to any preceding claim further comprising the step of receiving (500) a selection of one of said determined available candidate domain names.

10. A system for providing candidate domain names, whereby a candidate domain name is comprised of at least a Top Level Domain and a Second Level Domain, comprising: Means for receiving information (I/O) from a customer or a prospect customer (UE1, UE2) concerning one or more of customer location, service location, service type, pre-registered domain names, preferred domain name, customer data, postal code, country code, venue, customer interests on services. Means for evaluating (CPU) the received information, whereby evaluation leads to first candidate domain names, the evaluation encompassing scoring of candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Top Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name, whereby the candidate domain names are based on the received information. Means for checking (CPU) the candidate domain names regarding availability, and Means for determining (CPU) one or more of said available candidate domain names for selection by said customer.

11. The system of claim 10, whereby the means for evaluation are adapted to score candidate domain names with respect to the service location and/or the customer location and/or customer interests on services with respect to the Second Level Domain Portion of each candidate domain name.

12. The system of claims 10 or 11, whereby the means for evaluation are adapted to encompass concatenations of received information within the Second Level Domain Portions of each candidate domain name, whereby said concatenation is performed according to preferences and/or linguistic constraints in a target language.

13. The system according to any one of preceding claims 10 to 12, whereby the System is adapted to acquire a customer location by means of one or more of IP, Browser language, cookies, customer data, postal code, country code.

14. The system according to any one of preceding claims 10 to 13, whereby when the received information comprises a preferred domain name the means for evaluation are adapted to decompose the preferred domain name such that decomposed parts may form a Top Level Domain or be related to a Top Level Domain and/or a Second Level Domain part of one or more candidate domain name.

15. The system according to any one of preceding claims 10 to 14, whereby the system is further adapted to exchange received information by related information.

16. The system according to any one of preceding claims 10 to 1 5, whereby the means for evaluations are further adapted to vary the Top Level Domain based on similarities to the received Top Level Domain.

17. The system according to any one of preceding claims 10 to 16, whereby the means for evaluations are further adapted to base the evaluation on information related to an existing web site.

18. The system according to any one of preceding claims 10 to 17, further comprising means for receiving a selection of one of said determined available candidate domain names.