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SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ENABLING MULTI-ELEMENT BIDDING FOR INFLUENCING A POSITION ON A SEARCH RESULT LIST GENERATED BY A COMPUTER NETWORK SEARCH ENGINE

  • US 20100161428A1
  • Filed: 02/25/2010
  • Published: 06/24/2010
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/28/1999
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of operating a search system, the method comprising:

  • maintaining a database of search listings searchable by a search engine, each search listing being associated with a search term, a respective web site promoter and one or more bid element amounts, the one or more bid element amounts corresponding to money amounts chargeable to the respective web site promoter when a search listing is referred by the search engine;

    at a search engine web server in data communication with the database, providing search listings from the database to a searcher in conjunction with a page of information;

    subsequently, receiving at the search engine web server, none, one or more of the following;

    a retrieval request from the searcher to retrieve information associated with a selected search listing in the provided search listings, andone or more notifications that the searcher has performed one or more respective actions in connection with the selected search listing;

    at an account management server in data communication with the search engine web server, debiting an account of the web site promoter associated with the selected search listing as follows;

    by a bid element amount for impression when the search listing is displayed to the searcher,by a bid element amount for a clickthrough, when a clickthrough request was received as a notification, andby a bid element amounts for one or more actions when notifications were received for said one or more actions.

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