JP2003015996A - Method for acquiring site browsing state information, file used for the method, and system for collecting site browsing state information - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a practical method and system capable of collecting and accumulating information with respect to a browsing state of individual sites by users, thereby enabling analysis of effect of advertisement on a network more easily and in detail. SOLUTION: When a link button to a page with a target site 2 is clicked in a browsing person's terminal 3 on the Internet 1, a connection request is sent to a particularly arranged control server 4. The control server 4 extracts the information for specifying the browsing person's terminal 3 of a transmission source and the information for specifying the page of the target site 2, and transmits and displays the information in the browsing person's terminal 3 after having acquired the file displaying the page. The extracted information is sent to a browsing state DBS 5 and stored in a browsing state DBF51 every browsing person's terminal. When the connection request is transmitted from the browsing person's terminal 3, a medium ID, which is the information for specifying a link original site 6 or a mail news 7, etc., is also transmitted and extracted by the control server 4 to be saved in the browsing state DBF51.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and system for collecting information regarding the browsing status of sites on networks such as the Internet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The Internet based on TCP / IP is becoming one of the social infrastructures as a communication tool between computers. In addition, mobile terminals such as mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Data Assistants) are also actively used for various purposes such as sending and receiving electronic mails via the Internet and delivering contents. One of the important factors supporting such an internet society is internet advertising. It is a basic element of the Internet as an advertising means to send an HTML file by http to be browsed by a browser on a client, and many companies have a web site introducing their company profile and products. .

[0003] Such advertisement using the Internet has played an important role in explosively popularizing the Internet. There are paid and free services using the Internet.
In the case of paid sites, it is often the case that members are asked to become members in advance and the charges are collected using a credit card. However, even though security is ensured, the use of pay sites is often slow because of the hesitation of transmitting personal information such as credit card numbers via the Internet. On the other hand, free sites are free to use, and profits from advertisements attached to pages that display the site. It's no exaggeration to say that free sites with advertisements have brought the rise of the Internet these days.

The banner advertisement method is also an important element for popularizing advertisements on the Internet. There is a limited number of ads that can be displayed on one website. If a button that links to other advertising sites is pasted on a certain website, many advertising pages can be organically related, and a large amount of advertising information can be systematically provided. Become. Many free sites are managed by the income of banner advertisements, and the advertisement business mainly for banner advertisements is an essential element that supports the Internet society.

[0005]

Against the background of such needs for advertisements on the Internet, the advertisement intermediation business which mediates advertisements on the Internet has been growing at a very high rate. Is also seen to slow down. One of the reasons for this is that advertisers are somewhat skeptical about the advertising effectiveness of link buttons on advertisements and banner advertisements displayed on websites. For this reason, it is becoming widespread for advertisers who provide banner advertisements to many websites to individually evaluate the advertisements and select a website having a high advertisement effect.

As a method for evaluating such advertising effect, the one disclosed in US Pat. No. 5,948,061 is known. This method uses Cookie, and takes out user information from the Cookie generated by the browser and stores it in a database. However, this method
In the case of access from a browser or mobile phone that does not support e, the advertising effect cannot be evaluated. Also,
The information retrieved from Cookies is limited and may not be sufficient to analyze advertising effectiveness in detail. Further, the use of Cookie may not be preferable from the viewpoint of protection of personal information. The invention of the present application has been made in order to solve such a problem, and provides a practical method and system capable of collecting and accumulating information regarding the browsing status of individual sites by users, and There is a technical significance that makes it possible to analyze the effects of advertisements in more detail and easily.

[0007]

In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 1 of the present application is such that when each page in a site on a network is browsed in accordance with a request from a browser terminal via the network. Is a method for collecting information on the browsing status of each of the browsing terminals, and the information is distributed to the browsing terminal, which is different from the target site which is the target of collecting the browsing information. In the file to be provided, a link button attaching step of providing a link button displaying a link to a page of the target site, and when the link button is clicked, while transmitting information identifying the page of the target site,
A transmission step of transmitting a connection request for connecting the viewer terminal to a management server provided separately from the target site; and, when the connection request is transmitted, the management server is the transmission source of the connection request. In accordance with the extraction step of extracting the information specifying the viewer terminal and the information specifying the page with the target site, and the management server with the file for displaying the page according to the information specifying the page with the target site. After the acquisition, the configuration includes a display step of transmitting the file to the viewer terminal for display and a database forming step of storing the extracted information in a database for each viewer terminal. Further, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 2 is the structure according to claim 1, wherein in the transmitting step, in addition to information specifying a page of the target site, the another site or the browsing is added. Is a step of transmitting a medium ID, which is information identifying a file to be delivered to the viewer terminal, to the management server, and the extracting step is performed on the information identifying the viewer terminal and the information identifying the target site. In addition, it is a step of extracting the medium ID, and the database forming step is a step of attaching the medium ID to the information of the browsing situation and storing the information. In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 3 has the structure according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the file distributed to the viewer terminal is an electronic mail. In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 4 is
A file used for any one of the methods 1 to 3 that displays the different site and has the click button attached, or is delivered to the viewer terminal. It has a configuration in which the click button is attached. In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 5 is
A file used for the method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the file is delivered to the viewer terminal, the click button is pasted, and the file is an electronic mail. In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 6 provides the information on the browsing status when each page in the site on the network is browsed according to the request from the browsing terminal via the network. A management server provided separately from the target site which is a site for collecting the information on the browsing status, which is a site browsing status information collecting system for each collection,
The management server is provided with a program for collecting browsing status information, and the program includes a database means for storing information on the browsing status of the site as a database. When the displayed link button is clicked on the viewer terminal, the connection request from the viewer terminal is received together with the information specifying the page, and the information specifying the viewer terminal that made the connection request and the page And the information identifying the page, and according to the information identifying the page, after obtaining a file for displaying the page, the file is transmitted to the viewer terminal to be displayed, and the extracted information is stored in the database. It is configured to be sent to a means and stored in a database for each viewer terminal. In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the invention according to claim 7 is such that a medium ID, which is information identifying a file transmitted to the another site or the browser terminal, is transmitted to the management server. The program is for extracting the medium ID in addition to the information for identifying a page of the target site, and the database means saves the browsing status information with the medium ID. It has a structure of being a thing.

[0008]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments (hereinafter, embodiments) of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a site browsing situation information collecting system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The system shown in FIG. 1 is for investigating the browsing situation of a website 2 on the Internet 1 and using it for marketing or the like. Specifically, the Internet 1 is connected between a personal computer equipped with a browser, a mobile phone compatible with the Internet 1, an information terminal (hereinafter referred to as a viewer terminal) 3 such as a PDA (Personal Data Assistant) and each website 2. It acts as an intermediary for banner advertisements. Then, this system is a system that collects information on the browsing status of each page in each website 2 on the Internet 1 for each browser terminal 3.

When the link button or URL display is clicked, the top page of the relevant website 2 is sent to the viewer terminal 3 and displayed. At this time, the server of the relevant website 2 is displayed on the viewer terminal 3. Instead of linking directly, it links via this system. When linking, this system identifies which viewer terminal 3 the request is from, and checks which page the viewer has viewed on the website and accumulates data. ing.

More specifically, the system shown in FIG. 1 includes a management server 4 provided separately from each website 2 to be collected, and a database means for storing information on the site browsing status in a database. And consists of. The web site 2 means a WWW server (web server) that provides such a site. The database means is, specifically, a browsing status DB that is a file that is a database of site browsing status information.
A database server (hereinafter referred to as a browsing status DBS) 5 including an F (Database File) 51 and a DBMS (Database Management System) 52 that manages the browsing status DBF 51. The management server 4 and the browsing status DBS 5 are connected to the Internet 1 via a route control device 6 such as a firewall or a router.

The management server 4 itself also functions as a web server, and web server software running on a well-known OS is installed. As Web server software, Apa for Linux system
For Che and UNIX systems, Su from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
n IIS (Interenet Information Server) IIS of Microsoft Corporation can be used for Web Server and Windows NT. These server software are httpd (hypertext tra for sending and transferring the HTML file 41).
nsfer daemon) program is included. The management server 4 also includes the DNS server software 42, and
It also functions as an NS (Dmain Name System) server. Further, the management server 4 includes a banner mediating program 91 created to operate this system. The banner mediating program 91 is a kind of CGI (Common Gaming) that is activated by a request from a web server.
teway Interface) program, which is written in Java and other languages.

The site browsing status information collecting method of this embodiment will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an outline of the banner mediation program 91 installed in the management computer shown in FIG.

Mail news 7 is delivered to the viewer terminal 3 shown in FIG. 1 by electronic mail. Mail news 7
Is provided with a link button 8 (or URL display) to a web site (hereinafter referred to as a target site) 2 whose browsing status is to be investigated by this system. The link button 8 to the target site 2 is also pasted on the page of another web site 6 shown in FIG. This other website (hereinafter referred to as the link source site) 6 is usually Ya
It may be a search site such as hoo, a site of a provider with many users, or another popular home page.

The script executed by the link button 8 attached to the mail news 7 and the link source site 6 does not directly link to the page of the target site 2, but links to the management server 4 of this system. It is supposed to do. More specifically, for example, it is assumed that the target site 2 is an advertising site of a mass retailer of electric appliances named “XYZ Electric Appliance” and its URL is xyzdenki.com. In mail news 7 and link source site 6,
A link button 8 with a display such as "Cheap but proud XYZ electric appliance" is provided, but the script described in it does not link to xyzdenki.com, but to the management server 4 of this system. It is a link.

More specifically, the link button 8 includes http://xyzdenki.banner.platform4e.com/_ZN_fc1/inde
A script is written that contains the context x.htm. Of this context, xyzdenki.banner.platfo
rm4e.com is the URL of the management server 4 of this system. The script is written so that when the link button 8 is clicked, a banner mediating program 91 (described later) on xyzdenki.banner.platform4e.com is executed.

In the above context, _ZN_fc
Although 1 / is expressed in the form of a path name, it is actually an ID (hereinafter, medium ID) that identifies the medium to which the link button 8 is pasted. The medium mentioned here means an advertising medium, and refers to the link source site 6 or the mail news 7 or the like to which the link button 8 is pasted. As shown in FIG. 1, the link button 8 is
It is attached to different media. In the URL described in the link button, the platform4e.com portion can be freely set, and may be changed to the domain name of the company that operates the target site.

The banner mediating program 91 activated by the link of the link button 8 is a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) program having a name such as banner.cgi. When the banner intermediary program 91 is activated, as shown in FIG. 2, with respect to the viewer terminal 3 that has made a connection request,
It is determined whether it is the first connection request or the second and subsequent connection requests. Specifically, the IP address (source IP address) of the browser terminal 3 that has requested the connection is set to TCP /
Extract from the IP header of the IP. Also, from the domain name and path name, the host name (xyzdenki) and medium ID (_ZN_fc
1) Take out.

On the other hand, in the browsing status DBS5, the source IP
There is provided a DBF (viewer ID DBF) that associates an address with an ID (viewer ID) as a viewer whose page browsing situation is investigated by this system. The banner mediating program 91 creates an SQL sentence using the source IP address and the host name and sends it to the browsing status DBS5, and searches the viewer ID DBF to check whether there is a record. If there is no record, it is determined that the user is a new viewer, a new viewer ID is given, and the viewer IDD is added.
Add a new record to BF. If there is a record, the reader ID is read. The given or read viewer ID is temporarily stored in a memory variable.

The browsing situation DBS5 has a DBF (hereinafter, a regular domain name DBF) in which a regular domain name corresponding to a host name is registered. Banner Mediation Program 91
Sends the host name to the browsing status DBS5 to search the regular domain name DBF and obtains the regular domain name (xyzdenki.com) corresponding to xyzdenki. Then, the regular domain name is sent to the DNS server to obtain the IP address. Then, the banner intermediary program 91 acquires the file (index.htm) of the designated page of xyzdenki.com, and then sends this to the viewer terminal 3 for display. With that,
The data of the browsing ID, the legitimate domain name (xyzdenki.com) and the browsing page name (index.htm) are sent to the browsing status DBS5 and recorded together with the data such as date and time in the browsing status DBF provided for each browsing ID. To do.

Although detailed illustration and description are omitted, xyzden
Several pages are linked to the ki.com top page (index.htm). For example, home appliances page (kaden.h
tm), AV product page (av.htm), personal computer page (pasoco
m.htm), mobile phone page (keitai.htm), etc. Since the script written in the link button that links to each page is written in the relative path, when the link button is clicked on the viewer terminal 3 where the top page is displayed, xyzdenki.banner.platform4e.com will be displayed. You will be looking for a file with.

When a link button to another page linked to the top page is clicked, the banner mediating program 91 similarly extracts the host name from the context and assigns the IP address to the DNS server, as shown in FIG. get. Then, the file is acquired from the target site 2 according to the specified browsing page name, and sent to the viewer terminal 3 to be displayed. At this time, the viewer ID, the regular domain name,
The data of the browsing page name is sent to the browsing status DBS5 and recorded in the same manner. The above procedure is repeated while the connection between the viewer terminal 3 and the management server 4 is maintained, and when the connection is disconnected, the process exits the loop and the viewer ID
Information such as is removed from the memory variable. In the above description, it is described that the page is first linked to the top page, and then the page is jumped to another page in the site, but this is not an essential condition. It may also be the first link to a page on the site other than the top page.

Next, a configuration for analyzing the site browsing situation information collected as described above will be described below.
As shown in FIG. 1, the system of this embodiment has information analysis program groups 92, 93, and 94.

One of the information analysis programs 92 is
The browsing status of each page in the target site 2 is totaled. This program (hereinafter, page-by-page totaling program) 92 totals the number of times of browsing each page in the specific target site 2 within a predetermined period. Specifically, the browsing status DBF is searched by using the regular domain name, which is the information specifying the target site 2, and the aggregation period as search keys, and the number of hits is aggregated for each browsing page name. By counting, it is possible to know which page is popular in the target site 2 and the like. The details of the program can be easily created, so the explanation is omitted. FIG. 3 shows an example of the results aggregated by the page-by-page aggregation program 92.

Also, one of the information analysis program groups 9
3 measures the advertising effect for each medium. This program (hereinafter referred to as an advertisement effect measuring program) 93 collects the browsing status of the specific target site 2 within a predetermined period for each link source. In particular,
It is a program that searches the browsing situation DBF by using a regular domain name, which is information for specifying the target site 2, and a total period as a search key, and totals the number of hits for each medium ID. For example, if the link button 8 is attached to the three link source sites A, B, and C, the medium IDs are individually assigned to these three link source sites A, B, and C. It is possible to know how many accesses have been made via. As a result, the effect (advertising effect) of attaching the link button 8 to those linking sites A, B, C can be measured, and the linking sites A, B,
The adequacy can be evaluated in relation to the advertising fee paid to C. The details of the advertisement effect measuring program 93 can also be easily created, so the description thereof will be omitted. In Figure 4,
An example of the results aggregated by the advertising effect measurement program 93 is shown.

Further, one of the information analysis program groups 9
4 measures the ratio of the response to the mail news 7. This program (hereinafter referred to as a mail response rate measurement program) 94 calculates the number of accesses from the mail news 7 within a predetermined period for the specific target site 2 as a ratio to the number of distributions of the mail news 7. Specifically, when the number of delivered mail news 7 is input, the mail response rate measurement program 94 searches the browsing situation DBF using the regular domain name, the aggregation period, and the medium ID identifying the mail news 7 as search keys. The total number of hits is calculated, and the ratio of the number of hits to the number of distributions is calculated. As a result, it is possible to obtain data such as how many times the mail news 7 of the July issue has been accessed.

Next, in the system of this embodiment, the management server 4 is an HTML that provides a site for advertiser members.
It has a file 43. The advertiser member is a company, organization, individual or the like (hereinafter simply referred to as a company) that advertises on the target site 2 and has a link button 8 on the link source site 6 or an electronic mail. The advertiser member can access the member site of this system by using the member ID and password and use each of the programs described above. In other words, enter the legitimate domain name of your site, check the browsing status of each page on the site, analyze the advertising effect of the medium for each destination medium (link source site 6), distribute yourself It is possible to measure the response rate of the mail news 7 that has been sent. Each of the programs described above can be executed only when the company's regular domain name is used as a search key, and information of other companies cannot be searched. In addition, each program can display the execution result as a graph as needed.

According to the method and system of the present embodiment having the above-mentioned configuration, it is possible to collect information on the browsing status in the site for each browsing terminal 3, and it can be suitably used for marketing and the like. In addition, recording data in a file (local file) of the viewer terminal 3 such as Cookie is not an essential condition, so C
The present invention can be implemented even in the browser terminal 3 (mobile phone or the like) that uses a browser that does not support cookie. Therefore, the versatility is extremely high.

Further, since Cookie is not used, it is excellent in terms of privacy protection. The information recorded in the browsing status DBF is only the browsing history of a specific website, and personal information such as name, occupation, and address is not recorded. Further, the management server 4 deletes all the data in the browsing status DBF every predetermined period. Therefore, this point is also excellent in terms of privacy protection. In addition, the above-mentioned viewer ID is set to Co
It may be recorded in the cookie, and the viewer ID may be read from the cookie when the viewer accesses the next time after disconnecting the connection. Coo of this degree
There is no particular problem with the use of kie.

In the above-described embodiment, the medium ID given to the mail news 7 is the same ID for the mail news 7 having the same content, but depending on the case, the viewer terminal of the delivery destination A different ID may be assigned to each of the three. By doing so, it is possible to know whether or not there is access from the mail news 7 for each of the viewer terminals 3. For example, in the case of membership newsletter 7, if you have registered your occupation, age, etc. in advance with the consent of the person in question, when you browse the browsing status using this system, from what age group there are many responses It is possible to obtain data such as what profession members have many responses. The link button may be attached to the text of the email or attached to the file. Further, as the information recorded in the browsing status DBF, in addition to the information described above, information of the page being browsed immediately before browsing the page may be recorded.

Although the network is the Internet in the above embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this, and may be an intranet. Alternatively, an external network (personal computer communication network) other than the Internet may be used. Furthermore, the term “site” means “a place where a terminal is provided with a plurality of pages that can be browsed by a terminal”, and is not limited to a website on the Internet.

[0031]

As described above, according to the method or system of the present invention, the information on the browsing situation in the site can be collected for each browsing terminal and can be suitably used for marketing and the like. Further, since recording data in a local file such as Cookie is not an essential condition, it is highly versatile and excellent in privacy protection.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a site browsing situation information collecting system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart showing an outline of a banner mediation program 91 installed in the management computer shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a result of aggregation by a page-by-page aggregation program.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of results aggregated by an advertising effect measurement program.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Internet 2 target sites 3 Viewer terminal 4 Management server 5 reading situation DBS 51 Reading status DBF 6 Link source site 7 Mail news 91 Banner Mediation Program 92 page counting program 93 Advertising effectiveness measurement program 94 Email Response Rate Measurement Program

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[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] July 11, 2001 (2001.7.1)
1)

[Procedure Amendment 1]

[Document name to be corrected] Drawing

[Name of item to be corrected] Figure 1

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[Figure 1]

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A site browsing situation information collecting method for collecting browsing situation information for each browser terminal when each page in a site on the network is browsed according to a request from the browser terminal via the network. A link provided with a link button that displays a link to a page of the target site on a site that is different from the target site that is the target site for collecting the browsing status information or a file that is distributed to the viewer terminal. A button attaching step, and when the link button is clicked, a connection request for connecting the viewer terminal to a management server provided separately from the target site is transmitted while transmitting information specifying a page of the target site. A transmission step of transmitting, and when the connection request is transmitted, in the management server,
An extraction step of extracting information that identifies the viewer terminal that is the transmission source of the connection request and information that identifies a page of the target site; and information that identifies a page of the target site in the management server. According to the above, after obtaining a file for displaying the page, a display step of transmitting the file to the viewer terminal and displaying the file, and a database forming step of storing the extracted information in a database for each viewer terminal A method for collecting site browsing status information, which comprises: 2. In the transmitting step, in addition to the information for identifying a page of the target site, the medium ID, which is information for identifying a file to be delivered to the another site or the browser terminal, has the management server. The step of extracting the medium ID in addition to the information specifying the viewer terminal and the information specifying the target site, and the step of creating the database, 2. The step of storing the situation information with this medium ID attached.
How to collect information on the site browsing status described. 3. The file delivered to the viewer terminal is an electronic mail.
How to collect information on the site browsing status described. 4. The file used in the method according to claim 1, which is for displaying the other site and has the click button attached thereto, or the viewer terminal. A file characterized in that the above-mentioned click button is affixed to the user. 5. The file used in the method according to claim 1, which is delivered to the viewer terminal, has the click button attached, and is an electronic mail. File characterized by. 6. A site browsing situation information collection system for collecting browsing situation information for each browser terminal when each page in a site on the network is browsed according to a request from the browser terminal via the network. The management server is provided separately from the target site, which is the target site for collecting the browsing status information, and a database means for storing the browsing status information in a database. The server is equipped with a program for collecting browsing status information. This program requests connection from the viewer terminal when the link button that displays the link to a page on the target site is clicked on the viewer terminal. With the information that identifies that page, and the information that identifies the viewer terminal that requested the connection and that page Information to be specified is extracted, and a file for displaying the page is acquired according to the information for specifying the page, and then the file is transmitted to the viewer terminal for display, and the extracted information is stored in the database means. A site browsing situation information collection system characterized by being sent to and stored in a database for each browser terminal. 7. A medium ID, which is information specifying a file to be transmitted to the another site or the browser terminal, is transmitted to the management server, and the program is stored in the target site. 7. The medium for extracting the medium ID in addition to the information for specifying a certain page, and the database means stores the information on the browsing situation with the medium ID. Site browsing status information collection system.