Method and system for web page personalization

• US 20050204276A1
• Filed: 02/14/2005
• Published: 09/15/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cox Communications Incorporated (Cox Enterprises Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Predictive Media Corporation
• Inventors: Zimmerman, Richard Scott, Thurston, Nathaniel John, Oddo, Anthony Scott, Rascon, Arthur P., Hosea, Devin F.
• Granted Patent: US 8,527,869 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

The invention includes a method and system for personalizing displays of published Web pages provided by Web content providers to meet the interests of Web users accessing the pages, based on profiles of the users. The system preferably provides to the requesting user, through a proxy server, an edited version of the HTML file for the original published Web page that is served by a host Web server. The system uses user profiles that may include demographic and psychographic data to edit the requested Web page. The content of a Web page as published by a host Web server may be coded to correlate components of the Web page with demographic and psychographic data. The user profiles may then be used to filter the content of a coded Web page for delivery to a requesting user. The system may rearrange content on a published Web page so that content determined to be of higher interest to a user is more prominently featured or more easily or quickly accessible. The system may also delete content on a published Web page that is determined to be of low interest to a user. In embodiments of the invention, a single proxy server or proxy server system personalizes Web pages from multiple Web servers, using a single user profile for a user.

Claims

1. A method for adapting a published Web page for a user, comprising:

providing a profile of the Web page;

providing a profile of the user; and

producing a modified Web page based on the profile of the Web page and the profile of the user, wherein the Web page is adapted at a proxy server associated with the user.

2. The method of claim 1, said profile of the user including demographic data.

3. The method of claim 2, the step of producing a modified Web page including making a portion of the Web page content generally matching the demographic data more prominent.

4. The method of claim 2, the step of producing a modified Web page including making a portion of the Web page content not matching to the demographic data less prominent.

5. The method of claim 1, said profile of the user including psychographic data.

6. The method of claim 5, the psychographic data including a set of content affinities, the set of content affinities including a subset of higher content affinities, the step of producing a modified Web page including making a portion of the Web page content corresponding to the subset of higher content affinities more prominent.

7. The method of claim 5, the psychographic data including a set of content affinities, the set of content affinities including a subset of lower content affinities, the step of producing a modified Web page including making a portion of the web page content corresponding to the subset of lower content affinities less prominent.

8. The method of claim 1, said profile of the user including geographic data.

9. The method of claim 8, said geographic data being inferred from an IP address or a ZIP code.

10. The method of claim 8, the step of producing a modified web page including providing Web page content matching the geographic data.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the matching Web page content is news or weather information.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of producing a modified Web page includes rearranging a portion of the content of the Web page.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the rearranged portion includes at least one of links, advertisements, images and text.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of producing a modified Web page includes eliminating a portion of the content of the Web page, said eliminated portion including at least one of links, advertisements, images and text.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of producing a modified Web page further includes providing a link to the eliminated portion.

16. The method of claim 1, the Web page including a content component, wherein:

said profile of the Web page associating said content component with demographic data, said step of producing a modified Web page including the step of matching the profile of the user to the demographic data for the content component; and

17. A method for profiling a Web page, comprising the steps of:

obtaining the HTML file for the Web page, the HTML file including one or more content components;

defining a classification scheme including one or more categories; and

parsing the HTML file for the Web page to identify the one or more content components; and

associating at least one of the one or more content components with at least one of the one or more categories.

18. A method for personalizing for individual users in accordance with their requests a plurality of Web pages that are published on a plurality of Web content provider sites and accessible to a plurality of users, comprising the steps of:

providing profiles of the plurality of Web pages;

providing profiles of the plurality of users;

monitoring requests from the plurality of users;

detecting an individual request for a particular Web page;

obtaining the particular Web page;

obtaining a profile for the particular Web page;

obtaining a profile for the individual user;

producing a modified Web page based on the profile for the particular Web page and the profile for the individual user; and

sending the modified Web page for delivery to the individual user.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the step of providing profiles of the plurality of Web pages includes dynamically generating the profile for the particular Web page after detecting an individual request for a particular Web page.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the step of providing profiles of the plurality of Web pages includes generating and caching the profile for the particular Web page before detecting an individual request for the particular Web page.