GB2366887A

GB2366887A - Accessing electronic files over a network via keywords

Info

Publication number: GB2366887A
Application number: GB0106377A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Malcolm Macintyre Henry
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2000-03-17
Filing date: 2001-03-15
Publication date: 2002-03-20
Also published as: GB0106377D0; GB0006460D0

Abstract

A system and method of providing access to an electronic file via a network communication means wherein a user submits keywords which relate to the attributes they desire an electronic file to possess, and owners of electronic files can specify the attributes which would be required to have been requested by the user before a match is found by the system and the electronic file made accessible to the user. In one embodiment the user enters a string of the form "keyword.location.system.com", where system.com is an internet second level domain, into the address bar of an internet browser in order to access (i.e. retrieve) a file associated by the owner with the particular keyword and location given. Other preferable features include the return of a list of files whose attributes match those submitted by the user, this list preferably taking the form of hyperlinks on a webpage.

Description

<Desc/Clms Page number 1> Finding Appropriate Electronic Files This invention is a development of Patent Application No. 0006460.0 and is concerned with finding appropriate electronic files on a distributed network.

This is of concern to both people who are looking for electronically-stored information, and to people who are providing access to electronically-stored information.

Several methods of finding appropriate electronic files exist, all of which have drawbacks.

One method is to choose a word, or a combination of words (keywords), and type them into an electronic form, which is an interface for a search engine. The search engine finds and retrieves links to any file, regardless of subject matter, which contains words that match those typed into the form.

One drawback to this method is that, because words can be used in a wide variety of contexts, a great many links are returned, the majority of which are to files that have no information that is relevant to the original search.

Another drawback to this method is that owners of files have no direct control over when their files are going to be returned by the search engine. It is possible to influence the 'visibility' of a file with the use of keywords within the file but there are a great many different search engines in use across distributed networks, each of which uses different conventions for prioritising the return of files for any given combination of keywords. This multiplicity of conventions dilutes the effectiveness of any action taken by owners of files to improve the 'visibility' of their files.

Another method of finding files is to browse an index or directory of links, which are categorised under a variety of headings and subheadings.

One drawback to this method is that the person who creates the categories under which files must be listed has to anticipate the subject matter that may be covered by people submitting links to their files. Where no suitable category has been provided for a particular file in must be 'squeezed' into an inappropriate category: someone looking for that type of file will have difficulty finding it.

Another drawback is that the index or directory has, typically, a great many categories and sub- categories, which means that anyone who is looking for a particular type of information has to spend time looking through the list of categories and sub-categories to find the one that might be most suitable.

Another method of finding electronic files on a distributed network is by typing the URL of the file into a browser client. A URL is a unique address for an individual file.

One drawback to this method is that the person looking for a file must know the URL in advance. Also, if a letter, digit, or item of punctuation is typed incorrectly the file is not found.

Another drawback of this method is that a URL will deliver a single file whereas it is often more useful to have delivered summaries of, and links to, multiple files.

According to the present invention there is provided a computer system, connected to a common network, which is dedicated to the gathering and ordering of hyperlinks to electronic files that are stored on the network, and providing convenient access to these files via the hyperlinks.

Link information is ordered and stored by the system in a convenient structure. Each link record includes specific attributes that are relevant to the file to which the link provides access.

Access to the stored links is achieved by typing a URL into the address bar of any common browser interface that is connected to the network. Specific attributes relating to the desired subject matter are arbitrarily combined within the URL, along with the address of the system. On submission via the browser interface, the URL is recognised and resolved by the system into its component parts. The attributes specified within the submitted URL are compared against those specific attributes stored by the system. Where links, which are stored on the system, are associated with attributes that correspond to those specified within the URL, these are returned to the browser as a list of hyperlinks. These hyperlinks provide direct access to the relevant files that are stored on the common network.

A specific embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying schematic drawing.

The internet is an example of a computer network to which the system can be connected. A typical example of the system's application on the intemet is where the owner of a web page is a vendor, who uses a web page to promote an item for sale and wants the web page to be easily found by potential customers who are searching the internet for a similar item.

Typically, the vendor submits, via an internet form on the system's interface (1), the link information relating to the web page that describes the item for sale. This information may include, for example: web page URL; summary text describing the item for sale; the geographical location where the item may be purchased; one or more keywords that describe the item. Typically but not exclusively, this link information is stored in a database, which is integral to the system. Some or all of the information may be stored under the designation of 'attributes'. For example the geographic location and the keywords may be stored as attributes.

A customer who is using the internetto find information on a particular item types a URL into the address bar of their web browser. Typically this URL takes the form of a sub-domain that comprises keywords and the domain name (primary address) of the system. An example of such a URL is: keyword 1.location1.system.com The address of the system (system.com) is the only part of the sub-domain that is required by the system. The customer creates the rest of the sub-domain to reflect the nature of their request When the customer submits the URL (2) the request is delivered to the system, which is configured to accept any sub-domain of the system.com domain. The system recognises the individual elements of the sub-domain as attributes and compares these with the attributes stored in the system database (3). Where matching attributes are found, the links, which are stored in the database and are associated with these matching attributes. The system builds a web page to display these as hyperlinks (4) This web page containing the list of hyperlinks is delivered to the customer's web browser (5). The customer may choose the vendor's hyperlink from the list, which sends a request to the vendor's web page server (6), which delivers the requested page to the customer (7).

Obviously any combination of keywords and location identifiers may be used in front of the system,com domain.

Obviously there are several ways in which the attributes within the URL that is created by the customer may be identified and processed. For example attributes in a database may be used to create sub-domains on a name server that, when requested, are resolved to activate a server- side script that executes a database search and serves up the relevant list of hyperlinks to the customer.

Obviously the list of hypedinks that is returned may be combined within a web page that includes other information and/or functionality.

Claims

CLAIMS 1. A system for providing access to an electronic file via a network communication means wherein a user submits a desired attribute of the electronic file, characterised in that the owner of the electronic file can control the attributes which are required to have been entered by the user in order for the file to be accessible to the user.
2. A system as in Claim 1 wherein the user-entered attribute is a keyword.
3.A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the user- entered attribute is a location name.
4. A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the user- entered attribute is in the format keyword-location-system.com the suffix "system.com" being required to access the current system.
5.A system as in Claims 2-4 wherein the user-entered attribute contains any number of desired keywords or locations.
6.A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the user submits an attribute via the address bar of a web browser.
7. A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the user- entered attribute is compared to a stored database of

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attributes selected and submitted by the owner of the electronic file.
8. A system as in any preceding Claim wherein a list of electronic files whose stored attributes match the attributes entered by the user is displayed.
9. A system as in Claim 8 wherein the list is displayed as a list of hyperlinks on an Internet web browser page.
10. A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the "owner" of the electronic file is any person authorised to deal with the file.
11. A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the electronic files are Internet web pages.
12. A system as in any preceding Claim wherein the electronic files are stored within a computer network system.
13. A method of providing access to an electronic file comprising the steps of: # An owner of the electronic file submits attributes specified by the owner as being relevant to the content of the electronic file; # The owner-specified attributes are stored in a database; # A user submits desired attributes; # These user-submitted attributes are compared against the owner-specified attributes stored in the database;

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# A list of electronic files whose owner-specified stored attributes match the user-submitted attributes is returned to the user; # The user can then access these attribute- matching electronic files.
14. A system as in Claim 13 wherein the "owner" of an electronic file is any person authorised to deal with the file.
15. A system as in Claims 13 and 14 wherein the attributes submitted by the file owner and stored in the database include: # Keywords relating to the content of the electronic file; # Location names; # The Universal Resource Locator of the electronic file; # The network location of the electronic file.
16. A system as in Claims 13-15 wherein the user submits their desired attributes via the address bar of a web browser.
17. A system as in Claims 13-16 wherein the list of electronic files is displayed in the form of a list of hyperlinks on a web browser page.
18. A system as in Claims 13-17 wherein the electronic files are Internet web pages.

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19. A system as in Claims 13-18 wherein the electronic files are stored within a computer network system.