System for displaying ads

• US 20070100867A1
• Filed: 10/31/2005
• Published: 05/03/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Han, Xiaobing, Celik, Aytek
• Granted Patent: US 8,595,633 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method is disclosed for providing advertising content for display in a page over a network. A plurality of advertisements are determined that are qualified for display at a location in the page. When an advertiser has stores located at a plurality of geographic sites, only one advertisement for a store located at a first geographic site may be displayed. Thereafter, the advertisement for a store located at a second geographic site different from the first geographic site may be displayed.

Claims

1. A method for providing advertising content for display in a page over a computer network, the method comprising:

establishing a portion of the page to display an advertisement;

determining an advertisement that is qualified for display in the portion of the page;

determining whether any qualified advertisement is for an advertiser having more than one advertisement; and

rotating the advertisements for the advertiser such that only one advertisement per advertiser is displayed at any one time.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the advertiser comprises a business having locations at more than one geographic site.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein rotating comprises displaying only an advertisement for a first geographic site of the advertiser when a first page is displayed, then displaying only an advertisement for a second geographic site, different from the first geographic site, when a second page is displayed.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a qualified advertisement comprises an advertisement for a business located within a geographic area of the user.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the geographic area of the user is determined by an input from a user, a physical location of a user at a time of determining the qualified advertisement, a computer profile of the user, or information from a computer that performed the search query.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the geographic area is expandable in order to find a qualified advertisement within the geographic area.

7. An ad server for providing advertising content for display in a page over a computer network to a user, comprising:

a database to store a plurality of advertisements; and

a computer executed program, including;

a first routine to determine a qualified advertisement from the plurality of advertisements for display in a portion of the page;

a second routine to determine whether the qualified advertisement is one of a plurality of qualified advertisements that are for a single advertiser; and

a third routine to rotate advertisements for the single advertiser such that only one advertisement from the single advertiser is displayed at any one time.

8. The ad server of claim 7, wherein the single advertiser comprises a business having locations at more than one geographic site.

9. The ad server of claim 8, wherein the business is comprised of entities having different names, or entities having the same name and different store locations.

10. The ad server of claim 7, wherein an advertisement is qualified if the advertisement correlates to a geographic location of the user.

11. The ad server of claim 7, wherein more than one advertisement is displayed in the established portion of the page.

12. A method for displaying advertisements on a page, the method comprising:

determining a plurality of advertisements that are qualified for display on the page;

determining whether more than one of the advertisements are for a single advertiser; and

rotating the advertisements for the single advertiser such that only one advertisement for the single advertiser is displayed to the user at any one time.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the advertisement for the single advertiser that is displayed is for a business location that is located at one of a geographic location that correlates to a physical location of a user;

or a geographic location that correlates to a location input by the user.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein rotating comprises displaying only a first advertisement for the single advertiser when a first page is displayed, and then displaying only a second advertisement for the single advertiser, different than the first advertisement, when a second page is displayed.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the single advertiser comprises an advertiser that has businesses established at different locations.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the advertiser comprises businesses having more than one brand.

17. A method for providing advertising content for display in a page over a network to a user, the method comprising:

providing an input selector for an advertiser to input a search category, wherein the search category corresponds to a query term of the user;

providing an input selector for an advertiser to input a region, wherein the region corresponds to a location of the user; and

displaying the advertising content of the advertiser if the user searches for the query term corresponding to the inputted search category and the location corresponds to the inputted region.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the location of the user comprises a physical location of the user at the time a search is conducted by the user.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the location of the user comprises a location input by the user.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein the input selector comprises a dropdown menu.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the input selector comprises a map.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the input selector receives a feed from the user.