System and method for geographically organizing and classifying businesses on the world-wide web

• US 6,148,289 A
• Filed: 04/18/1997
• Issued: 11/14/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: LocalEyes Corp. (Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.)
• Inventors: Virdy, Ajaipal Singh
• Primary Examiner(s): Tkacs, Stephen R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): KALINOWSKI, ALEXANDER G
• Application Number:
  US08/844,522
• Time in Patent Office: 1,306 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/8, 705/26, 395/200.47, 395/200.48, 395/200.49, 704/2, 704/4, 704/5, 704/7, 707/1, 707/3, 707/6, 707/501, 707/502, 707/513
• US Class Current: 705/1.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A method and search engine for classifying a source publishing a document on a portion of a network, includes steps of electronically receiving a document, based on the document, determining a source which published the document, and assigning a code to the document based on whether data associated with the document published by the source matches with data contained in a database. An intelligent geographic- and business topic-specific resource discovery system facilitates local commerce on the World-Wide Web and also reduces search time by accurately isolating information for end-users. Distinguishing and classifying business pages on the Web by business categories using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes is achieved through an automatic iterative process.

Claims

1. A method of classifying a document published by a source on a portion of a network, comprising the steps of:

electronically receiving a document;

based on the document, determining a source which published the document; and

assigning a code to said document based on whether data associated with the document published by the source matches with data contained in a database,

wherein said portion of said network comprises a graphical multimedia portion of said network, said source comprises a Web site publishing a home page, and said network comprises the Internet.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said database comprises a Yellow Pages database.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said graphical multimedia portion of said network comprises the World-Wide Web (WWW) and said document comprises a Web document, and

wherein said step of assigning a code comprises assigning a code that classifies the Web document as a first Web document type when there is a match of data associated with the Web document published by the Web site with said data contained in said database, and that classifies the Web document as a second Web document type when there is no match of data associated with the Web document published by the Web site with said data contained in the database.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein said database comprises a Yellow Pages database.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the first Web document type is a business document and the second Web document type is a personal document.

6. A method of classifying a document published by a source on a portion of a network, comprising the steps of:

electronically receiving a document;

based on the document, determining a source which published the document; and

assigning a code to said document based on whether data associated with the document published by the source matches with data contained in a database,

wherein said step of determining a source includes;

extracting a domain name from a predetermined uniform resources locator (URL) database;

querying a registered domain name database for storing registered domain names; and

merging addresses from said registered domain name database with predetermined data.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said predetermined data comprises Yellow Pages data.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein said step of determining further comprises:

parsing URLs from the predetermined URL database into domain name and directory path portions; and

determining, based on the domain name, whether the URLs from the predetermined URL database are hosted on a true server or on a shared server.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the step of determining further comprises:

attempting to determine a root path for each URL hosted on a shared server.

10. A search engine for use on a network for distinguishing between business web pages and personal web pages, comprising:

means for parsing the content of a hyper-text markup language (HTML) at a web address and searching for criteria contained therein;

means for analyzing a uniform resources locator (URL) of the web address to determine characteristics of a web page at the web address;

means for determining whether said criteria match with data contained in a database; and

means for cross-referencing a match, determined by said determining means, to a second database to classify a source which published the web page,

wherein said criteria include at least one of an address, a telephone number, a facsimile number, a contact and a key-word contained in said HTML, and

wherein the characteristics of said web page include a geographical location and a web page host computer.

11. A search engine for use on a network for distinguishing between business web pages and personal web pages, comprising:

means for parsing the content of a hyper-text markup language (HTML) at a web address and searching for criteria contained therein;

means for analyzing a uniform resources locator (URL) of the web address to determine characteristics of a web page at the web address;

means for determining whether said criteria match with data contained in a database; and

means for cross-referencing a match, determined by said determining means, to a second database to classify a source which published the web page,

wherein said second database includes a Business Semantic Terminology database having information related to business categories in a Yellow Pages directory.

12. A search engine for use on a network for distinguishing between business web pages and personal web pages, comprising:

means for parsing the content of a hyper-text markup language (HTML) at a web address and searching for criteria contained therein;

means for analyzing a uniform resources locator (URL) of the web address to determine characteristics of a web page at the web address;

means for determining whether said criteria match with data contained in a database; and

means for cross-referencing a match, determined by said determining means, to a second database to classify a source which published the web page,

wherein said second database includes a Yellow Pages database.

13. A search engine for use on a network for distinguishing between business web pages and personal web pages, comprising:

means for parsing the content of a hyper-text markup language (HTML) at a web address and searching for criteria contained therein;

means for analyzing a uniform resources locator (URL) of the web address to determine characteristics of a web pare at the web address;

means for determining whether said criteria match with data contained in a database; and

means for cross-referencing a match, determined by said determining means, to a second database to classify a source which published the web page,

wherein said web page comprises hyperlinks, and said means for parsing comprises an indexer robot for traversing said hyperlinks in said web page and a web page index database,

said indexer robot for indexing a content of said web page into said web index database.

14. A search engine for use on a network for distinguishing between business web pages and personal web pages, comprising:

means for parsing the content of a hyper-text markup language (HTML) at a web address and searching for criteria contained therein;

means for analyzing a uniform resources locator (URL) of the web address to determine characteristics of a web page at the web address;

means for determining whether said criteria match with data contained in a database; and

means for cross-referencing a match, determined by said determining means, to a second database to classify a source which published the web page,

wherein said means for analyzing comprises;

means for determining whether said URL comprises one of a root URL and a leaf URL.

15. A search engine according to claim 14, wherein said root URL comprises an entry point for the web page on the World-Wide Web, and a leaf URL comprises a link below a root URL, said search engine further comprising:

means for parsing said URL into a domain name component and a directory path component;

means for analyzing the domain name in said domain name component to determine whether it is associated with a service provider (SP);

means for checking the directory path component to judge whether a directory path is missing, when the domain name is not associated with an SP, a missing directory path indicating a root URL, and for checking whether a directory path does not exist to thereby determine that said domain name comprises a root URL, when the domain name is associated with an SP;

means for comparing the path to known SP Client Directory paths, when a directory path exists;

means for analyzing a home page associated with said root URL, when said URL is determined to be a root URL, thereby automatically to extract home page data contained therein; and

means for assigning the home page data to the Root URL being analyzed.

16. A method of indexing textual content on the world-wide web, comprising:

robotically traversing the world-wide web to identify uniform resource locators; and

determining whether the identified uniform resource locators are associated with a business or an individual,

wherein the determining step comprises;

extracting ownership data from content associated with the identified uniform resource locators;

querying a business listing database based on the ownership data; and

determining that the identified uniform resource locators are associated with businesses if the querying matches the ownership data to a business listing in the business listing database.

17. The method according to claim 16, further comprising:

assigning business category codes to the uniform resource locators associated with businesses.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein the business category codes are the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes.