Search engine account monitoring

• US 20060206355A1
• Filed: 05/09/2006
• Published: 09/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Overture Services Incorporated (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Davis, Darren J., Savich, Peter, Cheung, Dominic Dough-Ming, Snell, Scott W., Shifflett, Scott A., Hu, Eugene F.
• Granted Patent: US 7,483,886 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1.100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A system and method of generating an ordered search list via a search engine by determining various account balances to determine where a search listing will appear, if at all, in a search results list. If a web site advertiser'"'"'s account is below a threshold, the search listing associated with the advertiser will not appear in the search list. Various balances may be used. Some of the balances may be closer to real-time balances and others may be more accurate, for example by removing certain event charges that were later determined to be non-chargeable. By using and monitoring the various account balances, the search engine prevents over-delivery of advertising through search result listings and possible over-billing of the advertisers.

Claims

1. A method of generating an ordered search list via a search engine, the method comprising:

in response to a search request from a searcher, retrieving from a database a set of search listings matching the search request, at least some of the retrieved search listings being associated with an advertiser'"'"'s account such that the advertiser'"'"'s account is charged an amount if a chargeable event occurs in connection with a search listing of the advertiser;

determining a reconciled account balance for the advertiser'"'"'s account based on a difference between deposits and a set of current chargeable event charges;

ordering the search listings into a search result list using priced amounts associated with the search listings, including ordering the search listings associated with advertisers with reconciled balances that are below a reconciled threshold as if their priced amount was zero;

providing the ordered search result list to the searcher; and

assessing charges to the advertiser'"'"'s account based on the searcher'"'"'s selection of a search listing from the search result list, including deducting an event charge amount from the account balance for the advertiser'"'"'s account after eliminating from the result event list events which are non-chargeable events or fraudulent events.

2. A network search engine comprising:

a search database storing data defining search listing records used to generate search results in response to user queries, each search listing record being associated with a network location and a respective priced amount;

an account database storing account information associated with search listings records;

an account monitoring system operative to determine an account balance for accounts in the account database, the account monitoring system being operative to determine a reconciled balance for an account based on a difference between deposits and current chargeable event charges for the account and to deduct event charge amounts from the account balance for an account upon the occurrence of a predetermined event for a search listing associated with the account, the account monitoring system further operative to eliminate event charge amounts which are non-chargeable to the account; and

a search engine that generates an ordered search result list including at least one of the search listings from the search results database for which the account balance determined by the account monitoring system is above a threshold, the search engine ordering search listings in the ordered search result list based on respective priced amounts of the ordered search listings, the search engine ordering search listings for which a reconciled account balance does not exceed a reconciled threshold as if the respective priced amount for a given search term was zero, or ordering the search listings as if the respective priced amount for a given search term was above zero and below all other non-zero priced amounts in the ordered search result list to reduce over-delivery of the search listings and reduce over-billing of competing advertisers.

3. A method of accounting for click results for an advertiser in a network search engine, the method comprising:

generating a result click list for the advertiser;

for each entry in the result click list, determining if the entry is a chargeable click;

for each entry in the result click list, determining if the entry is a fraudulent click;

for each entry in the result click list, determining if definitive click information exists for the entry;

if definitive click information exists for the entry, removing the click from the click list;

otherwise, if a click charge bucket exists for the click corresponding to the entry, adding a click charge to the click charge bucket; and

otherwise, adding a non-definitive click charge bucket entry; and

deducting the click charge amount from a working balance associated with the advertiser.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein determining if the entry is a chargeable click comprises excluding duplicate clicks and clicks generated for test purposes.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein determining if the entry is a fraudulent click comprises filtering the entry according to session identifier and resource identifier.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein determining if definitive click information exists for the entry comprises:

retrieving definitive click charge data;

retrieving account information for the advertiser;

for a charge in the definitive click charge table, if a click charge bucket entry for the account associated with the account information exists, then adding a definitive click charge bucket entry to replace an existing click charge bucket entry;

otherwise, adding a definitive click charge bucket entry;

recalculating balances associated with the account; and

removing the charge from the definitive click charge table.