JP4902200B2 - Provide content-related advertising with client-side device support - Google Patents

Description

(Related application)
This application was filed on September 24, 2002, and Jeffrey A. et al. Dean, Georges R .; US Provisional Application No. 60 / 413,536 entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR SERVING RELEVANT ADVERTISING”, which describes Harik and Paul Buchheit as inventors. Filed on Dec. 6, 2002, claiming the benefits of Dean, Georges R.D. US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 314,427 entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR SERVING RELEVANT ADVERTISEMENTS” which describes Harik and Paul Buchheit as inventors. Filed on February 26, 2003, which is a continuation-in-part application), Darrel Anderson, Paul Bucheit, Alex Carobus, Claire Cui, Jeffrey A. et al. Dean, Georges R.D. US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 375,900 entitled “SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON CONTENT”, which states Harik, Deepak Jindal and Narayana Shivakumar as inventors. To be incorporated).

  This application is also filed on June 3, 2003 and describes Krishna Bharat, Gokul Rajaram, Marshall Spight, and Narayana Shivakumar as inventors, “PROACTIVE SYNDICATION FOR THE SERVING OF THE SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS), a continuation-in-part of US patent application Ser. No. 10 / 453,909 (incorporated herein by reference).

  The present invention relates to advertising. In particular, the present invention relates to expanding opportunities for advertisers to set their own advertising goals.

  Advertising using conventional media such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines is well known. Unfortunately, even though the demographic studies and armed with full reasonable assumptions about a typical audience in various media outlets, advertisers have much of their advertising budget Recognize that it is simply wasted. Furthermore, it is very difficult to identify and eliminate such waste.

  Recently, advertising in more interactive media has become common. For example, as the number of people using the Internet has exploded, advertisers have recognized it as a potentially powerful way to advertise media and services provided on the Internet.

  Advertisers have created several strategies to maximize the value of such ads. In one strategy, advertisers provide interactive media or services (referred to herein as “websites”) as a route to reach a large audience (without loss of generality). Use popular presence or means. Using this first approach, advertisers can place advertisements on the homepage of, for example, the New York Times website or the USA Today website. In another strategy, advertisers set their advertising goals to a narrower niche audience, thereby increasing the likelihood of a positive response by the audience. For example, an agency advertising tourism in the Costa Rican rainforest may place an advertisement in the Ecotourism-Travel subdirectory of the Yahoo website.

  Regardless of strategy, website-based ads (also called “web ads”) are usually presented to their advertising audience in the form of “banner ads” (that is, rectangular boxes containing graphic components). . When a member of the advertising audience (called a “viewer” or “user” without loss of generality) clicks on one of these banner ads to select, the embedded hypertext link advertises the regular viewer Lead to the main website. This process by which a viewer selects an advertisement is commonly referred to as “click-through” (“click-through” is intended to cover the user's selection).

  Advertisers may use a number of measurable or determinable user actions such as click-throughs, click-through rates, conversions, conversion rates, etc. to determine the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. The ratio of the number of click-throughs to the number of impressions of an advertisement (the number of times an advertisement is displayed) is generally called the “click-through rate” of the advertisement.

  It is said that a “conversion” occurs when a user completes a transaction related to a previously served advertisement. The contents that make up the transformation vary from case to case and can be determined in a variety of ways. For example, a conversion may occur if a user clicks on an advertisement, is directed to the advertiser's web page, and completes the purchase before leaving the web page. Alternatively, conversion may be defined as the user being shown an advertisement and purchasing on the advertiser's web page within a predetermined time (eg, 7 days). In yet another embodiment, the conversion is performed at least by an advertiser, such as downloading a white paper, navigating to at least a specified depth of the website, displaying at least a certain number of web pages, a website or web pages, etc. It may be defined by the advertiser as any measurable / determinable user action, such as spending a certain amount of time. Of course, if the user action does not indicate a complete purchase, the user actions that make up the transformation are not limited to this, but they may indicate a sales lead. In fact, many other definitions of what constitutes a transformation are possible. A ratio of the number of conversions to the number of impressions of an advertisement (that is, the number of times an advertisement is displayed) is generally called a conversion rate. If it is defined that a conversion can occur within a given time since the advertisement was served, then one possible conversion rate definition could only consider advertisements that have been served in the past longer than the given time. is there.

  Despite the early prospects for website-based advertising, some problems remain with existing approaches. Although advertisers can interact with a large audience, they are often not satisfied with their profits on advertising investments.

Similarly, the host of a website where an advertisement is presented (referred to as a “website host” or “advertising consumer”) has the challenge of maximizing advertising revenue without harming the user experience. Some website hosts have chosen to place advertising revenue above user interest. Such a website is “Overture.com”, which hosts a so-called “search engine” service that responds to user queries and returns advertisements that masquerade as “search results”. Overture. com website allows advertisers to pay to position ads on their website (ie target website) higher in the list of what is said to be a search result . Advertisers pay only when a user clicks on an ad (i.e., cost per click) If such a scheme is implemented, ads that are not well-targeted are not clicked and therefore require payment Advertisers lose the motivation to set their advertising goals effectively.
As a result, advertisements with a high cost per click are displayed near or at the top, but viewers do not click on them, so they are not necessarily real revenue for the advertising publisher. In addition, the ad that the viewer clicks is further down the list, or not listed at all, so the ad validity is compromised.

  For example, search engines such as Google have allowed advertisers to set advertising goals so that ads are displayed in relation to search results pages that result from queries. While search result pages provide advertisers with a great opportunity to set their advertising goals to a more receptive audience, search result pages are just a fragment of the world wide web (called “web”) page view.

  Existing client-side advertising software systems (such as those used by Gator Corporation of Redwood City, Calif.) Are being displayed without recognition or involvement by the content owner. In response to a web page, an advertisement can be displayed in the user's browser or on the user's desktop. Such a system requires presence on the client (end user) computer and generally requires end user permission. In the Gator system, advertisements can be displayed on a user's computer screen based on (i) demographic and lifestyle profiles, (ii) (targeted customized messages based on individual online actions) Action goal setting, (iii) history goal setting (allowing a goal to be set and customized advertisements to be displayed on the user's computer screen based on past actions), and (iv) (Goals are set and customized ads can be displayed on the user's computer screen, whose online behavior has shown interest, but also deliver multiple impressions as they move around the web. ) Targeted to users using tag-a-long goal setting. Unfortunately, past user behavior is often an effective metric to determine which ads are useful to the user, but such past behavior may not indicate current user interest. There is. If multiple people (such as another member of the family) use the same computer and browser and access the Internet, then the past user behavior of the designated user may be difficult to track. In addition, tracking a user's online habits may create sensitive issues for the user's privacy. Furthermore, if such past user behavior is stored locally on the user's computer, it may consume the required storage resources.

  Therefore, there is a need to more fully utilize advertising opportunities on the web. Doing so should help the ad server show more ads by serving relevant ads and further improve the end user experience.

Summary of the Invention

  Client-side applications (such as browsers on end-user computers, browser plug-ins, browser toolbar plug-ins) are used to support the provision of content-related advertisements to client devices. The client-side application supports this by sending document information (such as document identifier, document content, content relevance information) to a content-related advertising server (simply called “content server” or “CAS”) May provide.

  The client-side application may also be used to combine document content and the content-related advertisements. For example, a client-side application may combine document content and advertisements in a window (eg, in a browser window), and in a window above the document window (eg, a “pop-up” window) below the document window. An advertisement may be provided in a window (such as a “pop-under” window) or in a window adjacent to a document window, such as “chrome” in a browser.

  The present invention may include a novel method, apparatus, message format and / or data structure for facilitating the provision of content-related advertisements using client-side applications. The following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention and is presented in the context of a particular application and its requirements. Various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and the general principles described below may be applied to other embodiments and applications. Accordingly, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but the inventor regards his invention as a patentable subject matter being described.

Detailed description

  In the following, an environment in which the present invention may operate is described. Next, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described. Finally, some conclusions regarding the present invention are stated.

(Embodiments in which the present invention may operate in or using it)
(Example advertising environment)
FIG. 1 is a high level diagram of an advertising environment. The environment may include an input, maintenance and delivery system 120. Advertiser 110 may enter, maintain, and track advertising information directly or indirectly within system 120. The advertisements may take the form of graphic advertisements such as so-called banner advertisements, text-only advertisements, image advertisements, audio advertisements, video advertisements, advertisements that combine one or more of these components, and the like. The advertisement may also include embedded information such as links and / or machine-executable instructions. The advertisement consumer 130 submits a request for an advertisement to the system 120, accepts the advertisement in response to the request from the system 120, and provides usage information to the system 120. Entities other than the advertising consumer 130 may initiate a request for advertising. Although not shown, other entities may provide usage information to system 120 (eg, whether a conversion or click-through associated with the advertisement has occurred). This usage information may include user measurements or observed behavior associated with the served advertisement.

  An example of an advertising consumer 130 receives a request for a document (eg, article, discussion thread, music, video, graphics, search results, web page listing, etc.) and responds to the request or otherwise to a service. This is a general-purpose content server that retrieves the requested document. The content server may submit a request for advertisements to the system 120. Such an advertisement request may include as many advertisements as desired. The advertisement request may also include document request information. This information includes the document itself (eg, page), the content of the document, or the category corresponding to the document request (eg, art, business, computer, art-movie, art-music, etc.), part or all of the document request, content Including age, content type (eg, text, graphic, video, audio, mixed media, etc.), geolocation information, content subject (eg, ad-safety level, porn filter, family filter, etc.), etc. Good.

  The content server may combine the requested document with one or more of the advertisements provided by the system 120. This combined information, including the document content and advertisements, is then forwarded to the end user who requested the document for presentation to the user. Finally, the content server determines the advertisement and how and when and / or where the advertisement needs to be displayed (eg, position, click-through, impression time, impression date, size, conversion, etc. Etc.) may be sent back to the system 120. Alternatively or additionally, such information may be provided back to system 120 by any means.

  Filed June 2, 2003 (incorporated herein by reference), Jeffrey A. et al. Dean, Georges R.D. US patent application Ser. No. 10/452, entitled “Serving ADVERTISEMENTS USING INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH E-MAIL”, which states Harik and Paul Bucheit as inventors. , 830, the content may be email information. In such cases, the content server may be an email server such as Yahoo Mail or Microsoft HotMail.

  Another example of an advertising consumer 130 is a search engine. A search engine may receive a query for search results. In response, the search engine may search for relevant search results (eg, from an index of web pages). Exemplary search engines include Australia, Brisbane, Australia, 7th International World Wide Web Conference, Articles, S.H. Brin and L. Page “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine” and US Pat. No. 6,285,999, both incorporated herein by reference. Such search results may include, for example, a list of web page titles, text excerpts extracted from those web pages, and hypertext links to those web pages, and a predetermined number (eg, 10) of searches. It may be classified as a result.

  The search engine may submit a request for advertisements to the system 120. The request may include the number of advertisements desired. This number depends on the search result, the amount of screen or page space occupied by the search result, the size, and the shape of the advertisement. In one embodiment, the number of advertisements desired will be 1 to 10, preferably 3 to 5. Requests for advertisements are queries (such as entered or parsed), information based on queries (such as geolocation information, whether the query is from an affiliate, and the identifier of such affiliate), and / or search results May include information associated with or based on search results. Such information includes, for example, identifiers related to search results (eg, document identifiers or “docIDs”), (eg, information retrieval (“IR”) such as dot product of feature vectors corresponding to queries and documents), page rank (Page Rank) score and / or scores related to search results (such as a combination of IR score and page rank score), text excerpts extracted from the specified document (eg web page), full text of the specified document , A feature vector of the identified document may be included.

  The search engine may combine the search results with one or more of the advertisements provided by the system 120. This combined information, including search results and advertisements, is then forwarded to the user who requested the content for presentation to the user. Preferably, search results are maintained as distinguishable from advertisements so as not to confuse the user between paid advertisements and possibly neutral search results.

  Finally, the search engine will determine the ad and when, where and / or how the ad needed to be represented (eg position, click-through, impression time, impression date, size, conversion, etc. Etc.) may be sent back to the system 120. Alternatively or additionally, such information may be provided back to the system 120 by some other means.

  Although an ad request can be initiated and / or transmitted by a content server and search engine, a client device (eg, a user's computer, personal digital assistant, mobile phone, mobile device, etc.) may also serve as an ad consumer 130. For example, an application that resides on a client device may submit an advertisement request to the advertisement system 120. The request may include information about the customer on the client device (eg, a web page on a content rendering application such as a browser, email on an email application, etc.) (or requested by the client device). For example, the advertisement request may include information about the document such as content relevance information, concepts, topics, and the like. The document information provided in the request may include the content (information) of the document, or other information (eg, URL) that allows such information to be obtained.

  As can be appreciated from the foregoing, the ad registration, maintenance and delivery system 120 may serve as an ad consumer 130 such as a content server, search engine and client device. As described above, the supply of advertisements with a goal set on a search result page created by a search engine is known. The present invention further enables the provision of advertisements with goals set for documents supplied by the content server. For example, referring to the exemplary environment of FIG. 3, a network or internetwork 360 may include an ad server 320 that serves targeted advertisements on search result pages from search engine 332. . Assume that internetwork 350 is the web. Search engine 332 crawls most or all of content 350. Some 334 of this content 350 includes available advertising spots (also referred to as “inventory”). More specifically, one or more content servers 336 may include one or more documents 340. The document may include embedded information such as content, meta information and machine executable instructions, and available advertising spots. Note that the advertisements inserted into the advertising spots in the document can change each time the document is served. Instead, an advertisement inserted into an advertising spot may have a static association with a designated document. As will be described in more detail below, the ad server may use the results of the some or all separate crawls of content including available advertising spots 334. Even if the document does not contain an explicitly defined usable advertising spot, the advertisement covers (ie obfuscates) the content of the document in the document or document (eg, on the document) It may be determined that the “pop-up” window can be supplied in conjunction with the “pop-under” window in the background below the document, in the browser chrome, etc.). An advertisement may partially or fully cover a document, share screen space with the document, take screen space from the document, and be partially or fully covered by the document or the like.

(Example advertisement registration, maintenance and delivery environment)
FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary advertising system 120 ′ with which the present invention may be used. The exemplary advertising system 120 ′ may include an inventory system 210 and may store advertising information 205 and usage information 245. The exemplary system 120 ′ includes an advertising information input and management operation 215, a campaign (eg, goal setting) support operation, an accounting and billing issue and issue operation 225 and a supply operation 230, an association determination operation 235, an optimization operation 240, Relative presentation attribute assignment (eg, position ordering) operations 250, fraud detection operations 255, and results interface operations 260 may be supported.

  Advertiser 110 may connect to system 120 ′ via advertising information input and management operations 215 as indicated by interface 216. Advertisement consumer 130 may connect to system 120 ′ via advertisement serving operation 230 as indicated by interface 231. Advertising consumer 130 and / or other entities (not shown) may also connect to system 120 ′ via results interface operations as indicated by interface 261.

  The advertising program may include information regarding accounts, campaigns, creatives, goal setting, and the like. The term “account” relates to information about the designated advertiser (for example, a unique e-mail address, password, fee billing issue information, etc.). A “campaign” or “advertising campaign” refers to one or more groups of one or more advertisements and may include start date, end date, budget information, geo-targeting information, syndication information, and the like. For example, Honda may conduct one advertising campaign for its car product and another advertising campaign for its single car product. The campaign for the automotive product has one or more advertising groups, each containing one or more advertisements. Each advertisement group may include a set of keywords and a maximum cost (cost per click-through, cost per conversion, etc.). Alternatively or additionally, each advertising group may include an average cost (eg, average cost per click-through, average cost per conversion, etc.). Thus, a single maximum cost and / or a single average cost may be associated with one or more keywords. As stated, each ad group may have one or more ads, or “creatives” (ie, advertising content that is ultimately displayed to the end user). Of course, the advertising information 205 may include more or less information and may be organized in many different ways.

  The advertisement information 205 can be input and managed via the advertisement information input and management operation 215. A campaign (eg, goal setting) support operation 220 can be utilized to assist advertiser 110 in creating an effective advertising campaign. For example, the campaign support operation 220 tracks all possible ad impressions associated with ads for use with a search engine, already reserved ad impressions, and ad impressions available for a specified keyword. Information provided by a good inventory system 210 can be used. The advertisement supply operation 230 may service a request for advertisements from the advertisement consumer 130. Ad serving operation 230 may determine a candidate advertisement for a specified request using relevance determination operation 235. Ad serving operation 230 may then use optimization operation 24 to select one or more final sets of candidate advertisements. Next, the advertisement supply operation 230 may use a relative presentation attribute assignment operation 250 to line up the presentation of the returned advertisement. Accounting / billing invoicing issue operation 225 may be used to track the charges associated with the provision of advertisements and to create invoices for advertisers. The fraud detection operation 255 can be used to reduce unauthorized use of the advertising system (eg, by an advertiser), such as by using a stolen credit card. Finally, the results interface operation 260 determines whether a click-through has occurred, whether a conversion has occurred (e.g., the sale of the advertised product or service has started within a predetermined time from the display of the advertisement, or It may be used to accept result information (from the ad consumer 130 or some other entity) about the actually served advertisement (such as completed). Such result information may be accepted at the interface 261 and may include information for identifying not only the associated results but also the advertisement and the time the advertisement was served.

(Definition)
Online advertisements, such as the advertisements used in the exemplary system described above with respect to FIGS. 1 and 2, or other systems, may have a variety of essential characteristics. Such features may be specified by the application and / or advertiser. These features are referred to below as “advertising features”. For example, in the case of a text advertisement, the advertisement features may include a title line, an advertisement body, an embedded link, etc. In the case of image advertisements, the advertisement features may further include images, executable code and embedded links. Depending on the type of online advertisement, the advertisement features may include one or more of the following. That is, text, links, audio files, video files, image files, executable code, embedded information, and the like.

  When an online advertisement is served, one or more parameters may be used to describe how, when and / or where the advertisement was served. These parameters are called “supply parameters” below. The supply-side parameter may include, for example, one or more of the following. That is, the characteristics of the document (including the information above) that the advertisement is served with, the search query or search result associated with the advertisement supply, user characteristics (eg, its geographical location, language used, browser type used) , Past page views, past actions, etc.), the site of the host or affiliate that initiated the request (eg, America Online, Google, Yahoo, on the page where it was supplied together) The absolute position of the ad on the ad, the position of the ad relative to other served ads (spatial or temporal), the absolute size of the ad, the size of the ad relative to the other ad, the color of the ad, The number of other advertisements served, the type of other advertisements served, the time served, the time of week served, the time of year served, etc. There may other serving parameters that may be used in connection with.

  Although supply parameters may be non-essential to advertisement features, they may be associated with advertisements as conditions or constraints. When used as a supply condition or constraint, such supply parameters are simply referred to as “supply constraints” (ie, “target setting criteria”). For example, in some systems, an advertiser can target its supply by specifying that the advertisement is only served to users at a specific location below a specific location on weekdays. It may be possible to set. As another example, in some systems, an advertiser may specify that the advertisement is served only if the page or search query includes a particular keyword or phrase. As yet another example, in some systems, an advertiser may determine that the advertisement is served by a document that contains a particular topic or concept, or that one or more particular clusters or some other one You may specify that it is supplied only when it falls into the above classification.

  “Advertisement information” is not only an extension of such information (such as information derived from advertisement-related information), but also from advertisement features, advertisement supply constraints, advertisement features (referred to as “advertisement-derived information”) or advertisement supply constraints. And / or any combination of information related to advertising (referred to as “advertisement related information”).

  “Document” should be interpreted broadly to include any machine-readable and machine-storable work product. A document may be a file, a combination of files, one or more files with embedded links to other files, and the like. The file may be any type such as text, audio, image, video, etc. The portion of the document displayed to the end user can be considered the “content” of the document. The advertising spot of the document may be defined with embedded information or instructions. In the context of the Internet, a common document is a web page. Web pages often include content, and may include embedded information (such as meta information, hyperlinks, etc.) and / or embedded instructions (such as Javascript (such as Java)). In many cases, a document has a unique addressable storage location and can therefore be uniquely identified by this addressable location. A universal resource locator (URL) is a unique address used to access information on the Internet.

  “Document information” is not only an extension of such information (such as information derived from related information), but also included in the document (referred to as “document derivative information”). Information that can be derived from existing information and / or information related to a document (referred to as “document related information”) may also be included. An example of document derivation information is classification based on the text content of the document. Examples of document related information include document information from other documents that have links to the current document as well as document information from other documents to which the current information links.

  Content from a document may be represented by a “content rendering application or device”. Examples of content rendering applications include Internet browsers (eg, Explorer or Netscape), media players (eg, MP3 players, Realnetworks streaming audio file players, etc.), viewers (eg, Adobe Acrobat pdf reader), and the like.

  A “content owner” is a person or entity that has some property right in the content of a document. The content owner may be the content author. Additionally or alternatively, the content owner may have the right to reproduce the content, the right to create derivative works of the content, the right to publicly display or execute the content, and / or the predetermined right of the content. A content supplier may be a content owner in the content of the documents it supplies, but this is not necessary.

  Various exemplary embodiments of the invention will now be described.

Exemplary Embodiment
(To facilitate the provision of content-related ads using client-side applications)
Consistent with the present invention, a client device (such as an end-user system) (1) requests one or more content-related advertisements, and (2) requests at least one content-related advertisement with the content of the requested document. One or more applications for rendering may be included. The request for one or more content-related advertisements may include: (i) content from the document, (ii) content relevance information (eg, concept, topic, category, classification, etc.) and / or (iii) document identifier It may include information about the requested document, such as (e.g., URL of a web page). The returned content-related advertisements may be rendered in association with the document content in any number of ways some of which are described above. The one or more client applications may include, for example, a browser, browser plug-in, browser toolbar, or some other application.

  If the end user is displaying an advertisement on the computer, the advertisement is (i) an extension to a content rendering operation (eg, a browser, etc.) on the end user's computer (eg, a plug-in such as a toolbar), (ii) The content rendering operation (eg, browser) itself, or (iii) can be plugged into the content of the document or presented in association with the content of the document. For example, FIG. 4 depicts a system 400 in which one or more end user systems 410 can request a document from one or more content servers 420 and render the content of the requested document using a content rendering operation 412. ing. The advertisement server 430 may be used to serve advertisements related to the content of the document. End user system 410, content server 420, and advertisement server 430 may communicate with each other via one or more networks, such as the Internet, or internetwork 440.

  As just described, end user system 410 may include a content rendering operation 412 such as, for example, a browser. One or more of the end user systems 410 may also include a content-targeted ad serving support operation 414. In the above example, the content-targeted ad serving support operation 414 may be a browser, a browser plug-in, an extension to the browser, or (both as indicated by the operation 414b of the content rendering operation 412b of the end user system 410b). It may be some other application (as indicated by operation 414a separate from content rendering operation 412a resident on end-user system 410a).

  The advertisement server may include one or more advertisements 434 (and associated advertisement information (not shown)) as well as content advertisement supply operations 432. In order to enhance the end user experience, the ad server 410 needs to serve advertisements related to the content requested by the end user in some way. As an example, filed February 26, 2003, Darrell Anderson, Paul Bucheit, Alex Carobus, Claire Cui, Jeffrey A. et al. Dean, Georges R.D. US Patent Application No. 10 / 375,900 entitled “SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON CONTENT”, which describes Harik, Deepak Jindal and Narayana Shivakumar as inventors, is content-related advertising. Various methods and devices for supplying are described. The content related advertisement supply operation 432 may use the document information in the request from the client device and examine additional document information directly or to determine one or more content related advertisements. That is, document information (eg, web page content) may be obtained during an advertisement request. For example, the application on the client device may send all the document information (eg, web page content, web page concept, etc.) required by the advertisement request, or the required document information uses a document identifier. And may be fetched. The required document information (eg web page content) may be prefetched (ie acquired before a specific request) for future content related advertising goal setting. In addition, a US patent application entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INCREASING EFFICIENCY FOR ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DELIVERY TO USERS” filed on March 29, 2002. No. 10 / 113,796 (incorporated herein by reference), US patent application Ser. No. 09 / 734,886, entitled “HYPERTEXT BROWSER ASSISTANT” filed Dec. 13, 2000. United States of America (incorporated herein by reference) and entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PERFORMING IN-CONTEXT SEARCHING” filed December 13, 2000 There are other methods for obtaining document information, such as the method disclosed in patent application 09 / 734,901.

  Each content server 420 may include content 424 as well as content supply operations 422. In one example, the content supply operation 422 supplies a document, such as a web page, using a universal resource locator (URL) provided by the end user system 410.

  A wide variety of embodiments of the invention are contemplated. In such an embodiment, the client device (end user system) procures a document request and a request (including document information) for one or more content-related advertisements, the content server procures the source document, and the content advertisement server One or more content-related advertisements will be procured and the client device will receive (directly or indirectly) both documents and content-related advertisements (both or separately).

  5 and 6 are messaging diagrams of information exchanged by an end user system, an ad server, and a content server (as an example of a client device) in various exemplary embodiments of the present invention. The present invention is not limited to the illustrated communication sequence. Other embodiments are possible and will be apparent to those skilled in the art. For example, various embodiments may include an intermediary node (eg, a proxy), but such embodiments are not shown.

  In the embodiment depicted in FIG. 5, when end user system 510 submits a request for a document (communication 550) to content server 520, content server 520 returns the requested document (communication 560) to end user system 510. . The end user system 510 then forwards the document information (communication 570) to the content related advertising server 530. The content-related advertising server 530 then uses the document information to determine one or more advertisements among other things. The one or more advertisements are then provided to end user system 510 (communication 580). In this embodiment, end user system 510 may include means for inserting the one or more advertisements into a document. Alternatively, the one or more advertisements can be rendered in association with document content (eg, in a pop-up window or pop-under window).

  In the embodiment depicted in FIG. 6, when end-user system 610 provides a request for a document (communication 650) to content server 620, it also provides a document information locator (eg, its URL) (communication 660) to a content-related advertising server. Submit to 630. The content server returns the requested document (communication 670) to the end user system 610. Content-related advertising server 630 uses the document locator to obtain document information (eg, fetched in the past). The content related advertisement server 630 then uses this document information to determine, among other things, one or more advertisements. The one or more advertisements are then provided to end user system 610 (communication 680). In this embodiment, end user system 610 may include means for inserting the one or more advertisements into a document. In this embodiment, end user system 610 may include means for inserting the one or more advertisements into a document. Alternatively, the one or more advertisements can be rendered in association with the document content (eg, in a pop-up or pop-under window).

  In one exemplary embodiment, the browser / toolbar on the client device sends the URL of the web page being rendered for display to the content-related ad server. The content-related ad server then uses the URL and past crawling results of the web page to determine the content / concept associated with the URL. One or more advertisements associated with the determined content / concept are determined and returned to the browser. The browser then renders at least one of the returned advertisements in the browser frame (but not in the document content in this particular exemplary embodiment). FIG. 8 depicts an exemplary browser window 800 that includes a document content portion 810 and a portion called “Browser Chrome” 820 above the document portion. As shown, in this exemplary implementation of the present invention, content-related advertisements 830 are rendered on the toolbar portion of browser chrome 820 of browser window 800. In an alternative embodiment (not shown), content-related advertisements could be arranged above or below the browser chrome 820 or above or below the browser chrome. Of course, content-related ads, ie other ads, use browser applications to modify the markup language (eg, HTML, XML, etc.) used to write a web page (eg, using IFRames). And may be rendered within the body of the web page document (using some other client device application to modify the markup language such as a web page).

  In this and other exemplary implementations of the present invention, the content of the web page is rendered (or at least started to render) before the one or more content-related advertisements are rendered. Indeed, in one particular implementation of the present invention, the web page can be rendered (or at least initiated) before the content-related advertisement is also requested by the client device application. This can be used to ensure that rendering of the one or more content-related advertisements does not block web page content or replace it. Of course, the present invention does not require such a processing order, and the advertisement is rendered before the web page content, at the same time as the web page content (or the rendering of the advertisement starts), or in an early order (on a first). -Available basis) rendered embodiments may be used. In other embodiments, the document identifier information (e.g., URL) may be sent to the content-related advertising server earlier (e.g., before or substantially simultaneously with the request for information to the content server), resulting in The content-related ad server has more time to perform the processing / matching required to select and return the content-related ad, thus improving the end user's browser experience .

  One or more advertisements can be shown in a predetermined location or in a separate window. Advertisements are served using at least document (eg web page) information. The document and / or any information related to the document is processed and converted into a format that allows matching with the expected advertisement and the appropriate, preferably relevant advertisement. The document could have been categorized when the advertisement was just illustrated, or could have been crawled and processed in advance. In connection with the search results (or some other dynamically created content), the advertisement can be inserted into a gap page before the search results are loaded. It can be plugged into a “cached” page that is mirrored on a search engine site. It can be plugged into an encapsulating frame (eg in the case of a Google Viewer).

  Although not illustrated in the above example, the content-related advertising server can simply return an advertising identifier or advertising locator to the end user system. The end user system can use the advertisement identifier or locator to look up the advertisement (eg, locally). This device may be advantageous when the advertisement is “bulky” (eg, image advertisement, flash advertisement, etc.). More specifically, this can be used to hold content advertising server light.

(Example data structure)
As described above, advertisements such as content-related advertisements combine one or more of graphic advertisements such as so-called banner advertisements, text-only advertisements, image advertisements, audio advertisements, video advertisements, and such components. You may take the form of advertising. The advertisement may be encoded in a markup language such as HTML or XML.

Consistent with the present invention, a request for one or more content-related advertisements procured by a client device application may include document information that is probably as small as a document identifier, such as a web page URL. Alternatively or additionally, the request may include one or more of the following pieces of information.

(Exemplary device)
FIG. 7 is an illustration of a machine 700 that may achieve one or more of the operations described above (eg, operations performed by an end user, operations performed by a content server, or operations performed by a content-related advertising server). It is a high level block diagram. The machine 700 basically includes one or more processors 710, one or more input / output interface devices 730, one or more storages to facilitate the transfer of information between the coupled elements. Device 720 and one or more system buses and / or networks 740 are included. One or more input devices 732 and one or more output devices 734 may be coupled by one or more input / output interfaces 730.

  One or more processors 710 may be used to implement machine-executable instructions (eg, Sun Microsystems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.) To accomplish one or more aspects of the invention. Run the Solaris operating system or C or C ++ running on a Linux operating system widely available from many vendors such as Red Hat, Inc. of Durham, North Carolina You can do it. At least a portion of the machine-executable instructions may be stored (temporarily or more permanently) on one or more storage devices 720 and / or external source via one or more input interface devices 730 May be received from.

  In one embodiment, the machine 700 may be one or more conventional personal computers. In this case, processing device 710 may be one or more microprocessors. The bus 740 may include a system bus. The storage device 720 may include system memory, such as read only memory (ROM) and / or random access memory (RAM). The storage device 720 includes a hard disk drive for reading and writing to a hard disk, a magnetic disk drive for reading and writing to a (for example, removable) magnetic disk, and a removable optical (magnetic) disk such as a compact disk and other optical (magnetic) media. An optical disk drive for reading and writing may also be included.

  A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer through input devices 732, such as a keyboard and pointing device (e.g., a mouse). Other input devices such as a microphone, joystick, game pad, parabolic antenna, scanner, etc. (or alternatively) may also be included. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 710 through a suitable interface 730 coupled to the system bus 740. The output device 734 may include a monitor or other type of display device that may be connected to the system bus 740 via a suitable interface. In addition to (instead of) the monitor, the personal computer may include other (peripheral) output devices (not shown) such as speakers and printers, for example.

(Conclusion)
As can be appreciated from the above description, the present invention expands the opportunity for advertisers to serve their advertisements to end users who perceive content to which the advertisements are relevant. The one or more client device applications (i) request an advertisement associated with the content of the requested document and / or (ii) render one or more content-related advertisements associated with the requested document. Can be used for.

FIG. 2 is a high-level diagram showing parties or entities that can interact with an advertising system. 1 is a bubble diagram of an exemplary advertising environment in which the present invention may operate. FIG. 6 depicts an environment in which an advertiser can set an advertising goal on a search result page generated by a search engine and / or a document supplied by a content server. 3 is a bubble chart of operations consistent with the present invention that may be used with an online advertising environment such as that of FIG. Is a messaging diagram illustrating the operation of various exemplary embodiments of the present invention. Is a messaging diagram illustrating the operation of various exemplary embodiments of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a high-level block diagram of an apparatus that may be used to perform at least some of various operations and generate and / or store information in a manner consistent with the present invention. 3 is a screen generated using an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (11)

In a computer-implemented method in a system including a client device and an ad server system,
In the ad server system,
a) receiving at the ad server system information related to the document requested by the client device;
The information related to the requested document is generated by at least one of (A) a browser application on the client device, (B) a browser plug-in on the client device, and (C) a browser toolbar on the client device. Information sent to the ad server system,
b) at least one advertisement relevant to the content of the document using at least the received information to find a matching supply constraint associated with the advertisement and stored in the advertisement server system; Determined by the ad server system,
c) sending the at least one advertisement determined to the client device at an ad server system;
The received information is document relevance information including at least one concept of the content of the document;
The document relevance information is automatically determined from only (1) the requested document using a content scraping code, and (2) does not include a user specified concept,
The computer-implemented method, wherein the determination of at least one advertisement relevant to the content of the document further uses advertisement relevance information that includes at least an advertising concept. In a computer-implemented method in a system including a client device and a content-related advertising server system,
On the client device:
a) receiving a requested document containing content by the client device;
b) Execute content scraping code to extract a concept from the content of the received document at the client device, the extracted concept is (1) only from the requested document using the content scraping code Automatically determined, (2) does not include user-specified concepts,
c) submitting a request for at least one content-related advertisement to the content-related advertisement server system by the client device, the request including the concept extracted at the client device;
d) using at least the extracted concept to find at least one content-related advertisement in order to find a matching supply constraint associated with the advertisement and stored in the content-related advertisement server system; Determined by the server system,
e) receiving at least one content-related advertisement issued by the content-related advertisement server system by the client device;
f) rendering the received at least one content-related advertisement by the client device;
The request for at least one content-related advertisement is made by at least one of (A) a browser application on the client device, (B) a browser plug-in on the client device, and (C) a browser toolbar on the client device. , Sent,
The at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement includes (A) a browser application on the client device, (B) a browser plug-in on the client device, and (C) a browser toolbar on the client device. A computer implemented method rendered by at least one of the following: In a computer-implemented method in a system including a client device and a content-related advertising server system,
On the client device:
a) receiving a requested document containing content by the client device;
b) extracting a concept from the content of the received document at a client device, wherein the extracted concept is automatically determined from only the requested document using (1) a content scraping code; 2) Does not include user-specified concepts,
c) submitting a request for at least one content-related advertisement to the content-related advertisement server system by the client device, the request including the concept extracted at the client device;
d) receiving at least one content-related advertisement issued by the content-related advertisement server system by the client device;
e) A computer-implemented method comprising rendering the received at least one content-related advertisement by the client device. f) further comprising rendering content of the requested document at a client device;
The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the act of rendering content of the requested document is initiated before submitting the request. f) further comprising rendering content of the requested document at a client device;
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the act of rendering the requested document content is completed before submitting the request. f) rendering the content of the requested document on a client device;
Further comprising
The computer of claim 3 , wherein the operation of rendering content of the requested document is initiated before the operation of rendering at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement is initiated. The method that is performed. f) rendering the content of the requested document on a client device;
Further comprising
The computer of claim 3 , wherein the act of rendering content of the requested document is completed before the act of rendering at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement is initiated. The method that is performed. f) rendering the content of the document in a first portion of a browser window by the client device;
Further comprising
The at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement is rendered in a second portion of the browser window, and the second portion of the browser window is in space with the first portion of the browser window. 4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the second portion of the browser window is not shared, and is (A) a browser chrome portion of the browser window or (B) a browser toolbar . In an apparatus for use in an environment including a client device and an advertisement server system,
a) input means for receiving information relating to the document requested by the client device;
b) at least one advertisement associated with the content of the document using at least the received information to find a matching supply constraint associated with the advertisement and stored in the advertisement server system; Means for determining in the server system;
c) means for transmitting the determined at least one advertisement to the client device;
With
The information related to the requested document is generated by at least one of (A) a browser application on the client device, (B) a browser plug-in on the client device, and (C) a browser toolbar on the client device. Information sent to the ad server system,
The received information is document relevance information including at least one concept of the content of the document;
The document relevance information is automatically determined from only (1) the requested document using a content scraping code, and (2) does not include a user specified concept,
The apparatus, wherein the means for determining at least one advertisement associated with the content of the document further uses advertisement relevance information that includes at least an advertising concept. In an apparatus on a client device used with a content-related advertising server,
a) means for executing content scraping code to extract concepts from the content of the received document;
b) means for submitting a request for at least one content-related advertisement to the content-related advertisement server;
c) at least one content-related advertisement at the content-related advertising server using at least the extracted concept to find a matching supply constraint associated with the advertisement and stored in the content-related advertising server. Means to determine,
d) i) a request document containing the content;
ii) at least one content-related advertisement issued by the content-related advertisement server;
Input means for receiving,
e) means for rendering at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement;
With
The extracted concepts are (1) automatically determined only from the requested document using content scraping code, and (2) do not include user-specified concepts,
The request includes the concept extracted at the client device;
The request for at least one content-related advertisement is made by at least one of (A) a browser application on the client device, (B) a browser plug-in on the client device, and (C) a browser toolbar on the client device. , Sent,
The at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement includes (A) a browser application on the client device, (B) a browser plug-in on the client device, and (C) a browser toolbar on the client device. A device rendered by at least one of the following: In an apparatus on a client device used with a content-related advertising server,
a) means for extracting a concept from the content of the received document;
b) means for submitting a request for at least one content-related advertisement to the content-related advertisement server;
c) i) a request document containing the content;
ii) at least one content-related advertisement issued by the content-related advertisement server;
Input means for receiving,
d) means for rendering at least one of the received at least one content-related advertisement;
With
The extracted concepts are (1) automatically determined only from the requested document using content scraping code, and (2) do not include user-specified concepts,
The apparatus, wherein the request includes the concept extracted at the client device.

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