METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RECORDING SEARCH TRAILS ACROSS ONE OR MORE SEARCH ENGINES IN A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

• US 20140032519A1
• Filed: 09/27/2013
• Published: 01/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/19/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Nigel Hamilton
• Original Assignee: Nigel Hamilton
• Inventors: Hamilton, Nigel
• Application Number:
  US14/040,180
• Publication Number:
  US 20140032519A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

An automated method for recording sites accessed by a client in a communications network, the method including the steps of: detecting submission of a search query (10) from the client to one or more search engines; and recording a search trail (11) of one or more parameters of sites accessed consecutively following return of search query results to the client.

Claims

1. An automated method for recording sites accessed by a client in a communications network, the method including the steps of:

detecting submission of a search query from the client to one or more search engines; and

recording a search trail of one or more parameters of sites accessed consecutively following return of search query results to the client.

2. An automated method according to claim 1, wherein the step of detecting submission of the search query includes:

detecting submission of a completed form object from the client;

determining if part of the form object matches a known search command format of any of the plurality of search engines.

3. An automated method according to claim 2, wherein the search command format includes the network address of a search engine program for executing the search query.

4. An automated method according to claim 3, wherein the search command format further includes one or more search parameters identifying a user-entered search query.

5. An automated method according to claim 2, wherein the step of detecting submission of a completed form object by the client includes:

locating form objects in an object model of content served to a client; and

adding a routine to each form object to enable interception of the completed form object upon submission.

6. An automated method according to claim 5, wherein the step of locating all form objects in a document object model of content served to a client is carried out after the content has been served to the client.

7. An automated method according to claim 6, wherein the content is an HTML document, and all form objects in a document object model of the HTML document are located once a DocumentComplete event occurs.

8. An automated method according to claim 7, wherein the HTML document includes a GET or a POST form.

9. An automated method according to claim 1, wherein the step of recording one or more parameters of the sites accessed consecutively from the search query results is optionally selectable at the client once a search query is detected.

10. A system for recording sites accessed by a client in a communications network, the system including:

a search query detector for detecting submission of a search query from the client to one of a plurality of search engines; and

a search trail recorder for recording a search trail of one or more parameters of sites accessed consecutively following return of search query results to the client.