JP2002222356A - Method and program for menu display of advertisement banner in web page - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To raise the click rate of an advertisement banner without collecting personal information of visitors at the time of displaying the advertisement banner in a web page in a portal site or the like on the Internet. SOLUTION: Keywords representing business category names, commodities, or the like of other sponsors are displayed in the periphery of the single advertisement banner with texts, pictures, or the like as an advertisement menu together with this advertisement banner. When a user clicks a keyword, the advertisement banner is changed to an advertisement banner of the pertinent sponsor. The advertisement menu is properly changed when the advertisement banner is changed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a method for displaying an advertisement banner of a Web page browsed by using an HTML browser or the like on the Internet, and a program according to the method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Although the Internet was not originally developed for commercial use, it has been widely used for commercial purposes from various angles, such as mail-order sales, as it has spread widely. In particular, a novel use that has not been found in computers until now is a series of pages called a portal site. Some of them provide news and some provide a means of searching the Internet, and their functions cannot be defined unconditionally. However, an important similarity between these pages is that they provide excellent information to visitors free of charge. The way in which these are established as businesses is similar to the commercial broadcasters of television and radio.

[0003] When a homepage is created as a portal site business, a method of displaying a banner advertisement on the homepage has been established as one method of securing profits. This means that instead of having the user pay the page usage fee directly, the user is paid by the advertisement sponsor (promotion request source) by displaying the advertisement and clicking the advertisement banner. Is the way. With a few exceptions, advertising banners are usually priced by two metrics: the number of ad banners displayed and the number of clicks on the ad banner.

Therefore, the click rate of the advertisement banner is an important index for the portal site, but the content of the advertisement banner is not necessarily an unspecified number of visitors who browse the Web page with a browser (hereinafter referred to as visitors). Does not necessarily match the interests of Therefore, many portal sites display multiple advertisement banners on one page. However, this method has some disadvantages as shown in the following (1) to (4). (1) Depending on the display position of the advertisement banner, there is a difference in the advertising effect. (2) As the size of the screen is limited, if the number of advertisement banners is increased, the display size of one advertisement banner is reduced. (3) The file of the advertising banner is several kilobytes to several tens of kilobytes in size, and sending it to all visitors' browsers through the Internet causes an increase in traffic. If the number of advertising banners increases, W
This is a burden on the web server. (4) The increase in traffic places a burden on visitors.

[0005] Therefore, it is desired that the banner advertisement be able to display an advertisement that matches the interest of the visitor without increasing the number of advertisements, and various methods have already been tried. .

[0006] For example, the "word target method" is a method in which, when a visitor searches for a specific keyword, an advertisement banner of a company related to the keyword is displayed.
This is an excellent way to ensure that banners relevant to the interests of the visitor are displayed.

[0007] In addition, many portal sites with free membership services on the Internet provide information about interests of members (sports, profits,
Movie, etc.), and when the member accesses the portal site, the advertisement banner related to the matter is displayed preferentially.

[0008] These methods are all excellent methods, but have a drawback that they cannot be used unless the interests of the visitor are known in advance by some method. The former cannot be used unless the portal site has a keyword search function, and the latter has no meaning for an unspecified number of visitors. For an unspecified number of visitors who only browse information,
It is difficult to know where that interest is.

The invention for increasing the click rate is as follows.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-148675 discloses an apparatus and a method for providing a customized advertisement on the WWW. However, since the input character string and the page content are ultimately keywords, the word target method is used. Is not much different. For portal sites such as general news sites where reader interest is difficult to understand from information from the browser, the click rate must be increased by other methods.

[0010]

The existing technology as described above collects visitor information in order to increase the click rate of an advertisement banner. However, portal sites are various and various methods are used. Many pages cannot be used. In addition, there is great criticism and caution about the collection of personal information itself from the viewpoint of privacy protection. It is undeniable that in the future these methods will be banned by law or treaty and will not be usable at all on the Internet.

[0011] Therefore, it is desirable to have a method that can display a banner that matches the interests of the visitor without relying on information from the visitor. The simplest way to solve this is to increase the number of displayed banners. However, the amount of information in advertising banners is usually several kilobytes, but as the number of displayed banners increases, it can not be ignored, and it also detracts from the aesthetics of the homepage and eventually leads to a decrease in visitors. Therefore, a method that does not increase the number of displayed advertisement banners unnecessarily is desirable.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems in the prior art, and when displaying an advertisement banner on a Web page, it is possible to increase the click rate of the advertisement banner without collecting personal information of the visitor. The purpose is to:

[0013]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for displaying a menu of an advertisement banner on a web page, wherein a plurality of advertisement banners are displayed around the advertisement banner displayed in the web page. Displaying an advertisement menu describing only the keywords of the advertisement banner, and when a visitor of the Web page selects any of the keywords in the advertisement menu, the advertisement banner corresponds to the selected keyword. And replacing and displaying the advertisement banner.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, when the advertisement banner is replaced, an advertisement menu displayed around the replaced advertisement banner is replaced with another data and displayed. The method further comprises a step.

The invention according to claim 3 is the invention according to claim 1 or 2
In, as the data to be displayed on the advertisement banner and the advertisement menu, from among a plurality of advertisement banners prepared in advance, the one near the end of the period for displaying the advertisement banner, or the data of the advertisement banner The method further includes a step of preferentially selecting a display number or a number of times the visitor selects the advertisement banner that has not reached a target level.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a menu display program according to the method for displaying a menu of an advertisement banner on a Web page according to any one of the first to third aspects.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a display example of an advertisement banner according to the embodiment of the present invention. This banner has an advertisement banner display unit 1 and an advertisement menu display unit 2. As a precondition for displaying the advertisement menu display section 2, the portal site needs to have a contract with a plurality of advertisement sponsors to display a banner advertisement.

The advertisement banner display section 1 is a main part for displaying an advertisement banner of a company. The first banner displayed here should be selected randomly or based on special rules. The advertisement menu display unit 2 displays a plurality of keywords, such as the type of business or the product to be advertised, using text characters or images. The keywords and images (hereinafter, simply referred to as keywords) of each menu displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2 are randomly or based on keywords of the type of business or product of the advertising sponsor currently contracted by the portal site, or based on special rules. Select and display. In principle, the advertisement sponsor currently displayed on the banner display unit 1 is not displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2.

When the displayable number of keywords in the advertisement menu display section 2 is smaller than the number of advertisement sponsors, the advertisement menu display section 2 displays a part of advertisements selected from a plurality of contracted advertisement sponsors. The sponsor's keywords are displayed. If the displayable number of the advertisement menu display unit 2 is larger than the number of advertisement sponsors, the same keyword is displayed twice or a plurality of keywords are set for the same sponsor. In this case, it is necessary to set a plurality of fields of the business name (keyword) 203 shown in FIG.

Next, a process in which a visitor browses an advertisement will be described with reference to a display example of an advertisement banner shown in FIG.

A visitor of the portal site browses the entire page including the banner shown in the upper part of FIG. 1 using a Web browser or the like. The visitor is the advertising banner display section 1
When is clicked, the Web page of the advertisement sponsor is displayed (this is the same as a normal banner advertisement). When the visitor clicks any keyword in the advertisement menu display section 2, the advertisement banner display section 1 is changed to that of the advertisement sponsor related to the clicked keyword.
At that time, the advertisement menu display section 2 is also changed to another one. This is changed randomly or based on a special rule. However, menu items that were not displayed last time or menu items that were displayed last time may be mixed depending on the number of advertisement sponsors.

For example, in FIG. 1, a corporate advertisement A is displayed on the advertisement banner display unit 1 and keywords of the types of business B, C, D, E, and F are displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2. When the visitor clicks on the type of business C in the advertisement menu display section 2, the advertisement banner display section 1 displays the advertisement banner display section 3
As shown in (1), it is changed to that of an advertising sponsor related to the type of business C. At that time, the advertisement menu display section 2 has been changed to a menu item 4 not displayed previously and a menu item 5 displayed last time.

Since the advertisement menu display section 2 is not the advertisement banner itself, clicking it does not necessarily mean that the advertisement banner is clicked. But,
Since the banner selected and displayed by the visitor on the advertisement menu display unit 2 is a banner selected and displayed by the visitor, the probability that the displayed banner is clicked is high.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a system configuration according to the embodiment of the present invention. This system is a browser 101
Web server 102, advertisement distribution server 103,
Database server 104 and management client 10
5 is provided. The core is the advertisement distribution server 103 and the database server 104. Advertising distribution server 10
3 is an advertisement banner display unit 1 and an advertisement menu display unit 2
Is a part for determining the data to be displayed in the contract sponsor. The database server 104 stores the advertisement data for that purpose. This database is referred to by a request from the advertisement distribution server 103.
There are cases where the information is updated, and cases where the information is referred and updated by the management client 105. Management client 10
Reference numeral 5 is for manually adding advertisement banner information and changing registration information, and does not need to be connected to the Internet (it is desirable not to be connected for security).

The advertisement banner is called from an HTML file on the Web server 102 using an <IMG> tag or the like. Therefore, conceptually, the advertisement distribution server 103 is called from the Web server 102. In fact, the client browser 101
EB server 102 and advertisement distribution server 103 are separately HT
Although the call is made using the TP protocol, emphasis is placed on how each server cooperates.
This is described as being called from the web server 102. The change of the advertisement menu display part 2 and the advertisement banner display part 1
aScript and CGI (Common Gateway)
y Interface).

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a screen browsed by the browser 101. In the figure, the advertisement banner display unit 3
In 01, a predetermined advertisement banner is displayed. In the advertisement menu display sections 311 to 315, as keywords,
“Overseas travel”, “condominium”, “expensive car purchase”, “hit! Cash!”, And “free mail” are displayed. The user can switch the display of the advertisement banner display unit 301 by clicking a desired one of these keywords.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the structure of a database in the database server 104 used in the present embodiment. The logic for selecting the advertisement banner and the advertisement menu to be displayed is determined based on the database 200 as shown in FIG. The database 200 basically includes the following ten fields.

An ID 201 is an individual identification number of the banner, and a banner information 202 is a file name of the banner. These may be HTML text or banner image information itself depending on the system. The business name 203 is a keyword displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2 or a file name or image information of an image in which the keyword is described.
Depending on the system, this field may be set more than once. The contract start date / time 204 is a start date / time at which the banner is permitted to be displayed on the menu display unit 2 or the advertisement banner display unit 1, and the banner is not displayed before the set time. The contract end date and time 205 indicates the end date and time of the period for displaying the banner according to the contract, and the banner is displayed with the set time as a target. Scheduled end date and time 2
06 is the date and time until a certain point (contract point to be described later) obtained by prediction is reached in the case of a contract.
The scheduled end date and time 206 is recalculated every time the banner is displayed or clicked.

The already clicked number 207 is the contract start date and time 20
The number of times the banner has been clicked from 4 to the present. It does not include the number of times the keyword of the banner displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2 is clicked. 20 already displayed
8 is the number of displayed banners from the contract start date and time 204 to the present. It does not include the number of displays on the advertisement menu display unit 2. The contract point 209 is a value determined by a contract with the sponsor of the banner, and the banner is displayed until the point value reaches the contract point. The definition of the point depends on the implementation of the system, but is usually a function derived from the already-clicked number 207 and the already-displayed number 208. The function is based on only the number of clicks in the guaranteed number of clicks, and only in the number of already displayed in the guaranteed number of displays. The jump destination URL 210 is a URL to the sponsor page displayed when the banner is clicked.
(Uniform Resource Locato
r).

The banners displayed on the advertisement banner display section 1 and the advertisement menu display section 2 are basically selected at random, but the banner whose contract end date and time 205 is approaching is displayed with priority. The determination as to whether the contract end date and time 205 is imminent depends on the system.

There are mainly three methods for displaying a banner displayed on the advertisement menu display section 2. The first is
This is the case where (the number of sponsors) ≦ (the number of displayed menus).
In this case, one of the sponsor banners is displayed on the advertisement banner display unit 1 and the remainder is displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2, but the advertisement menu display unit 2 has one or more surplus. In that case, the place is blank, or a plurality of displays of the same menu, or a plurality of keywords for the same advertisement banner are displayed. The second display method is a case where (the number of sponsors + 1) = (the number of displayed menus).
In this case, the advertisement banner display unit 1 and the advertisement menu display unit 2
However, there is no problem as it will be filled with all sponsors. The third display method is (number of sponsors + 1)>
(Menu display number). In this case, since the number of sponsors is large and all the sponsors cannot be included in the menu display frame of the advertisement menu display unit 2, some of them are selected and displayed. The priority in this case may be, for example, the following order (1) to (3).
(1) Banner whose contract end time (205) is approaching, (2)
A banner whose scheduled end date / time (206) is later in time than the contract end date / time (205), and (3) other banners. However, those that have not reached the contract start date and time (204) or that display the banner are not displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2. If all items having the same priority cannot be displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2, the items to be displayed at random are determined.

For each banner, the advertisement banner display section 1
, The already displayed number (208) of the database is incremented, and when displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2, it is not incremented. When the menu of the banner displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2 is clicked, the banner is displayed on the advertisement banner display unit 1, and the displayed number (208) is incremented at that time.

At the time of displaying the advertisement banner, the ID 201 is passed as an argument to the program (CGI) on the advertisement distribution server 103 which is started when the advertisement banner is clicked. When the advertisement banner is clicked, CGI
Increments the number of clicks 207 based on the ID 201 and simultaneously instructs the browser 101 to display the page of the advertisement sponsor.

The number of already clicked 207 or the number of already displayed 20
Each time 8 is updated, the points (for example, obtained by a system-dependent function using the already-clicked number 207 and the already-displayed number 208 as arguments) are recalculated, and the points
Is reached, the banner information is deleted from the database 200.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of the initial display processing among the Web server, the browser, and the advertisement distribution server in the present embodiment. Web on the left side of the figure
The flow of processing in the server 102, the processing in the browser 101 in the center, and the flow of processing in the advertisement distribution server 103 are shown on the right. First, in step 501, the Web page creator describes the table part (frame) of the banner advertisement and the URL to the script provided by the advertisement distribution server 103 in the HTML document of the homepage. Next, when the user of the browser 101 performs a predetermined operation, step 50 is performed.
In step 2, the browser 101 reads the contents of the Web page, that is, the HTML document. In step 503, the browser 101 sets the advertisement distribution server 103 based on the URL.
Request a script to

In the advertisement distribution server 103, step 50
4. From the database, enter industry information (keyword 20 in FIG.
3) is acquired, and in step 505, initial values to be displayed on the advertisement banner display unit 1 and the advertisement menu display unit 2 are determined. In step 506, a script necessary for determining the type of menu display is transmitted to the browser 101. This script contains the initial values determined in step 505.
In step 507, the browser 101 requests the advertisement distribution server 103 for the image information of the advertisement banner display unit 1 and the advertisement menu display unit 2 to be initially displayed. At step 508,
The advertisement distribution server 103 adds one to the already displayed number 208 of the corporate advertisement of the designated banner (the banner of the advertisement banner display unit 1 to be initially displayed) on the database. Then step 5
At 09, the advertisement distribution server 103 transmits the requested banner image information and menu image information to the browser 101 of the client.

At steps 510 and 511, the browser 10
1 displays the sent image as an advertisement banner display unit 1 and an advertisement menu display unit 2. As described above, the initial display of the advertisement banner display unit 1 and the advertisement menu display unit 2 as described with reference to FIG. 1 is realized.

FIG. 6 shows the flow of processing when any one of the menus displayed on the advertisement menu display section 2 in the browser 101 is clicked. Here, a case will be described as an example in which the menu of "business type C" is clicked in FIG. The browser 10 is located on the left side of FIG.
1 shows the flow of processing, and the right side shows the flow of processing of the advertisement distribution server 103.

In step 601, it is assumed that the viewer of the Web page clicks “business type C” in the menu. In step 602, the browser 101 sets to change the image of the advertisement banner display unit 1 to that of the corporate advertisement C. In step 603, the browser 101 requests the advertisement distribution server 103 for banner image information of the corporate advertisement C. In step 604, the browser 101 next displays the advertisement menu display unit 2
Is determined, and in step 605, menu image information of the type of business is requested to the advertisement distribution server 103.

At the advertisement distribution server 103 side, step 6
Step 611 in response to the request for the banner image information of Step 03
Already displayed 208 of the corporate advertisement C on the database 200
Is added, and in step 612, the designated banner image information is transmitted to the browser 101 of the client. Also,
In response to the request for the menu image information in step 605, the menu image information is transmitted to the browser 101 of the client in step 613.

On the browser 101 side, step 606
Then, the banner image information transmitted from the advertisement distribution server 103 is displayed on the advertisement banner display unit 1. Step 60
At 7, the menu image information transmitted from the advertisement distribution server 103 is displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2.

In FIGS. 1 to 4, the advertisement distribution server 10
Although the menu to be displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2 is determined on the side 3, the type of business to be displayed as a menu is determined on the browser 101 side in step 604 in FIG. 6. As described above, the type of menu displayed on the advertisement menu display unit 2 may be determined on the browser 101 side, and a menu corresponding to the type of business may be selected by the advertisement distribution server 103 and displayed as a menu.

FIG. 7 shows a flow of processing when the advertisement banner on the advertisement banner display section 1 is clicked. Here, it is assumed that the company advertisement C is clicked. The left side of the figure shows the processing flow of the browser 101, and the right side shows the processing flow of the advertisement distribution server 103.

In step 701, it is assumed that a Web page viewer clicks on the corporate advertisement C in the advertisement banner display unit 1. In step 702, the browser 101 moves to the page C
Call GI. The advertisement distribution server 103 performs Step 7
At 03, 1 is added to the number of clicks 207 of the corporate advertisement C on the database 200. Next, in step 704, the jump destination URL is transmitted to the browser 101. Browser 1
01 is the designated jump destination UR in step 705
L is accessed and the page of the company C is displayed.

In the above-described embodiment, an example is described in which the advertisement menu display unit 2 is provided below the advertisement banner display unit 1. However, the position of the advertisement menu display unit 2 is located around the advertisement banner display unit 1. It can be anywhere. For example, the advertisement menu display unit 2 may be provided at the upper part, the left part, or the right part of the advertisement banner display unit 1, or a combination thereof.

[0047]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When displaying an advertisement banner on a Web page, a banner matching the interest of the visitor can be displayed without collecting the visitor's personal information, and the click rate of the advertisement banner can be increased. In addition, since the advertisement menu in which the keyword of the advertisement banner is described is displayed around the advertisement banner, the display space on the browser is small, and the appearance of the HTML page is not spoiled.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a display example of an advertisement banner according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a basic configuration diagram of a system according to the embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a view showing an example of a screen browsed by a browser in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a basic structure of a database according to the embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of an initial display process among a Web server, a browser, and an advertisement distribution server in the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when a menu displayed on an advertisement menu display section is clicked;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a processing flow when an advertisement banner on an advertisement banner display section is clicked;

[Explanation of symbols]

1,3 ... Advertising banner display section, 2,4,5 ... Menu display section, 101 ... Browser, 102 ... Web server, 103
... Advertisement distribution server, 104 ... Database server, 10
5. Management client.

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Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A method of displaying a menu of an advertisement banner on a web page, comprising the steps of: displaying an advertisement menu describing only a plurality of other advertisement banner keywords around the advertisement banner to be displayed in the web page; When a page visitor selects any of the keywords in the advertisement menu, the advertisement banner is displayed.
Replacing the advertisement banner with an advertisement banner corresponding to the selected keyword and displaying the advertisement banner.
Menu display method of advertisement banner of eb page. 2. The method of displaying an advertisement banner on a web page according to claim 1, wherein, when the advertisement banner is replaced, another advertisement menu displayed around the replaced advertisement banner is also provided. A menu display method for an advertisement banner on a Web page, further comprising a step of replacing the data with the data and displaying the data. 3. The method for displaying a menu of an advertisement banner on a web page according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the advertisement banner and the data to be displayed on the advertisement menu are selected from a plurality of advertisement banners prepared in advance. Priority is given to those that are nearing the end of the period in which the advertisement banner is displayed, or those in which the number of times the advertisement banner is displayed or the number of times the visitor selects the advertisement banner has not reached the target level. Steps to
A menu display method for an advertisement banner on a web page, further comprising: 4. The We according to claim 1, wherein:
A menu display program according to a method for displaying a menu of an advertisement banner on page b.