Systems and methods for identifying an internet resource address

• US 20050149507A1
• Filed: 10/06/2004
• Published: 07/07/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Truelocal Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Truelocal Incorporated
• Inventors: Nye, Timothy G.
• Application Number:
  US10/959,913
• Publication Number:
  US 20050149507A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for identifying information about an entity. The entity may be a business or service. Information about the entity can be determined by processing any attributes known about the entity, such as a phone number, business name, or address. For example, information, such as an internet address of a business can be determined from the phone number of the business. With the phone number of the business, a number of potential internet addresses for that business may be determined. A single address, which is likely to be that of the business, can be determined by processing the potential internet addresses using tuning techniques and pattern recognition algorithms. A database of websites associated with directories or portals may be created using attributes known about a plurality of entities.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of identifying a url address of an entity comprising:

receiving a request for a URL address of an entity;

selecting a verified attribute associated with the entity; and

using the verified attribute, searching for potential URL addresses of the entity.

2. A computer implemented method as in claim 1 wherein the verified attribute is a telephone number of the entity.

3. A computer implemented method as in claim 1 wherein the verified attribute is obtained from a persistent storage, that includes verified information about a plurality of entities.

4. A computer implemented method as in claim 3 wherein the persistent storage includes at least one of:

yellow pages database, white pages database, membership list or business information database.

5. A computer implemented method as in claim 1 wherein the verified attribute is verified by an independent source that is any yellow pages database, white pages database, membership list, global positioning device, or telephone service.

7. A computer implemented method as in claim 1 wherein searching for potential URL addresses of the entity further includes:

querying one or more search engines using the verified attribute; and

obtaining search result hits.

9. A computer implemented method as in claim 7 further includes analyzing URL addresses of at least a portion of the hits including processing one of the URL addresses by comparing the URL address with a business name attribute of with the entity.

11. A computer implemented method as in claim 9 wherein processing one of the URL addresses by comparing the URL address with a business name attribute of the entity further includes:

quantifying a degree of similarity between the business name attribute of the entity and the URL address; and

assigning a confidence level to the URL address based at least in part on the degree of similarity between the business name attribute of the entity and the URL address.

15. A computer implemented method as in claim 9 wherein processing one of the URL addresses by comparing the URL address with a business name attribute of the entity further includes:

determining that the URL address is a potential match based on the results of the comparison;

extracting website content associated with URL addresses of at least a portion of the hits; and

using the website content to verify the potential match.

16. A computer implemented method as in claim 9 wherein analyzing URL addresses of at least a portion of the hits further includes:

determining whether one or more of the URL addresses corresponds to a homepage; and

if a URL address corresponds to a homepage, increasing a degree of confidence associated that the URL address is a potential URL address of the entity.

17. A computer implemented method as in claim 7 wherein obtaining search results further includes analyzing website content of at least a portion of the hits by:

identifying electronic addresses in the website content, where the electronic addresses are any URL addresses or an email addresses; and

computing a total number of occurrences for each electronic address identified; and

ranking the hits based at least in part on the computed totals.

20. A computer implemented method as in claim 17 wherein computing a total number of occurrence for each electronic address identified further includes:

analyzing the electronic addresses identified in the website content to determine whether any URL address and email address have the same domain name; and

responding to determining that a URL address and email address have the same domain by processing the URL address and email address having the same domain as a single occurrence.

22. A computer implemented method as in claim 17 wherein identifying electronic addresses in the website content further includes:

collecting website content associated with one or more of the electronic addresses; and

filtering the content for relevant attributes known about the entity; and

analyzing the relevant collected website content to determine whether each of the electronic addresses identified is within a maximum distance from the relevant attributes.

25. A computer implemented method as in claim 7 wherein obtaining the search results further includes eliminating false positives from the search results by comparing URL addresses identified in the search results against a collection of URL addresses that correspond to false positives, where the false positives are any URL addresses corresponding to portals or directories.

27. A computer implemented method as in claim 25 wherein the collection of URL addresses that correspond to false positives is created by:

identifying suspect URL addresses that include website content referencing a plurality of verified attributes of a plurality of entities; and

determining that the suspect URL addresses are false positives.

28. A computer implemented method as in claim 1 wherein the request for a URL address of an entity further includes an attribute of the entity that is not the same attribute as the verified attribute.

30. A computer implemented method as in claim 1 wherein the entity is any one of the following:

a business, organization, enterprise, or agency.

6. (canceled)

8. (canceled)

10. (canceled)

12-14. -14. (canceled)

18-19. -19. (canceled)

21. (canceled)

23-24. -24. (canceled)

26. (canceled)

29. (canceled)

31. A software system for identifying a URL address of an entity comprising:

a search handler receiving a request for a URL address of an entity;

a search process, in communication with the search handler, responding to the request by selecting a verified attribute to use in a search query; and

the search process analyzing results of the search query to identify the URL addresses of the entity.

33. A software system according to claim 31 wherein the attribute list includes at least one of the following:

telephone number of the entity, a name of the entity, a physical address of the entity, or any information about the entity.

36. A software system according to claim 31 wherein the verified attribute is obtained from any yellow pages database, white pages database, membership list or business information database.

39. A software system according to claim 31 wherein the search process further includes logic for:

passing the verified attribute to a plurality of independent search engines;

processing search results received from the plurality of search engines; and

determining whether the search results provide a minimum number of hits.

40. A software system according to claim 31 wherein the search process analyzing results of the search query to identify the URL address of the entity further includes:

a tuner, in communication with the search process, the tuner filtering the results of the search process to identify candidate hits; and

a confidence, assigned by the tuner to each of the candidate hits, where the confidence reflects a degree of certainty as to whether a respective candidate hit corresponds to the entity.

41. A software system according to claim 40 wherein the confidence assigned by the tuner is determined at least in part by:

a string matching process quantifying a degree of similarity between a business name associated with the entity and a URL address of a respective candidate hit; and

the string matching process identifying a pattern in the business name and the URL address of the respective candidate hit by comparing a character string extracted from the business with a character string extracted from the URL address of the respective candidate hit.

46. A software system according to claim 39 wherein the search process processing search results received from the plurality of search engines further includes:

a data extraction tool for extracting content website content associated with one or more of the search results;

a parser, in communication with the data extraction tool, to parse the extracted content of one or more of the search results;

a predictor, in communication with the parser, to compute a number of occurrences that a respective URL address and a respective email address appear in the extracted content of a respective search result; and

a domain analyzer, in communication with the predictor, to analyze each URL address and email address identified in the extracted content of a respective search result.

47. A software system according to claim 46 wherein the domain name analyzer includes logic to disregard public email addresses.

50. A software system according to claim 39 wherein the search process further includes logic to eliminate false positives in the search results by comparing the search results against a database of false positives.

51. A software system according to claim 50 wherein the database of false positives further includes URL addresses that correspond to websites for directories or portals.

52. A software system according to claim 50 wherein the database of false positives is developed by searching for URL addresses that correspond to websites, which provide a plurality of verified attributes about a plurality of entities.

32. (canceled)

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53. (canceled)

54. A system for identifying a URL address of an entity comprising:

means for receiving a request for a URL address of an entity;

means for selecting a verified attribute associated with the entity; and

means for using the verified attribute, searching for potential URL addresses of the entity.

55-79. -79. (canceled)