Method of promoting strategic documents by bias ranking of search results

• US 20030093338A1
• Filed: 04/10/2002
• Published: 05/15/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kim, Moon Ju, Doganata, Yurdaer Nezihi, Rodriguez, Juan-Leon
• Granted Patent: US 7,249,058 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0627 using item specifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

A method, software and apparatus are provided which enable promotion of products and services in a deterministic manner free of conflicting actions modifying raw ranking data based on merchants interests. For this purpose, an information consolidator is provided to obtain search results for a plurality of sources including directly from merchants. When a shopper enters a set of key words in an entry field in an on-screen form for a web server to obtain a list of items (products and/or services) of interest to the shopper, the documents describing the items can be prioritized by the information provided by the information source based on the web sites owner'"'"'s priorities. The information consolidator receives ranking information taking the highest ranked products and obtains the product information for the most highly ranked products. The information consolidator then reranks the products using a preferred ranking algorithm to remove information sources biases in this ranking of the products. The information consolidator can add weighting factors such as those covered in the copending applications by the merchant. The weighting factors are combined with the mentioned ranking mechanisms to the documents to increase the probability that certain items come to the top when the search results are presented to the shopper. These pages could be used to promote products or otherwise direct the selection shoppers. The weighting factors are configured so as to not decrease the shoppers confidence in the ranking process.

Claims

1. A method for enabling a on-line merchant to tailor a response to a shopper'"'"'s on-line interrogation, said software comprising:

obtaining the rankings and descriptions of products or services from a plurality of sources including at least one on-line merchant and one on-line service provider;

reranking the merchants products at least partially based on the number of hits to product descriptions in the merchants database on-line requests of the shopper specifying characteristics of a product desired by the shopper;

modifying the ranking of at least one of the merchants products ranked by the reranking, which modification is by a factor based on the rerankers product strategy; and

providing a presentation of products to the customer that presents the products in order of rank determined by both the initial ranking and the modification of at least one of the reranked products.

2. The method of claim 1 including using other weighting factors in the ranking for taking into account other adjustments to tailor the presentation.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the other ranking factors include factors for the customer'"'"'s buying preferences and product popularity.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the ranking is in accordance with the following formula:

R=1−

n rank factors score+n (weighting factor)

where;

n is a number less than 1 representing the proportion of the adjustment applied to the weighting factor

R=Rank

5. The method of claim 1 including using the weighting factor to modify the ranking of a group of the merchants products based on the merchants marketing strategy.

6. The method of claim 5 including limiting the highest ranked of the group for insertion into the presentation prior to application of the weighting Factor.

7. The method of claim 6 transmitting the presentation on the Internet intermixed with products of other merchants where the products of all merchants is presented to the shopper in order of rank.

8. A computer software product on a computer usable medium for enabling a on-line merchant to tailor a response to a shopper'"'"'s on-line interrogations, said software comprising:

computer code for obtaining the rankings and descriptions of products offered on the internet from a plurality of sources including at least one on-line merchant and one on-line service provider;

reranking computer code for reranking the merchants products based on the number of hits in product descriptions to on-line requests specifying characteristics of products described by the shopper;

weighting computer code for modification of the rank of at least one of the merchants products by the ranking computer code, which modification is based on the rerankers marketing strategy; and

transmission software for providing a presentation of merchants products to the customer that presents a plurality of the merchants products in order of rank, where the rank of at least one of the products is determined by both the ranking and weighting computer code.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 including other weighting computer codes for taking into account other ranking factors.

10. The computer program code of claim 9, wherein the other ranking factors include the customer'"'"'s buying characteristics and a product'"'"'s popularity.

11. The computer program code of claim 10, wherein the ranking of the at least one product is in accordance with the following formula:

R=1−

n [F (% w Tf+x % Popularity+y % LA)]+n(weighting Factor)

where;

n is a number less than 1 representing the proportion applied to the weighting factor

w, x and y=proportions applied to the other weighting factors

Popularity=product popularity conforming to the raw weighting factor

LA=users past buying practice

Tf=Text Factors