Targeted advertisements using time-dependent key search terms

• US 7,007,074 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2001
• Issued: 02/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Radwin, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): KRAMER, JAMES A
• Application Number:
  US09/950,567
• Publication Number:
  US 20030050863A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,632 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 709/227, 705/1, 705/14, 705/26
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0263 based upon Internet or website rating
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

An advertisement generation system presents a time-dependent advertisement to a user based upon to a search term of a search query during a period of time via a communication network The system includes a search engine coupled to a web server for receiving the search query and for presenting a search results page. The search results page is accompanied with an immediate advertisement. In one embodiment, the system includes an advertisement repository to store data representing a plurality of advertisements and includes the immediate advertisement and the time-dependent advertisement. Also, the system includes a user profiler configured to communicate a plurality of search characteristics and includes a data structure to store the search characteristics. Lastly, an advertisement server is included to provide to the web server the immediate advertisement with an associated search results page and the time-dependent advertisement with a web page presented after the display of the search results page, until a period of time expires.

Claims

1. In a computer system that generates hypertext pages, or representations thereof, for presentation to users at user computing devices, wherein the hypertext pages include at least references to advertisements that are to be displayed on the user computing devices along with other portions of the hypertext pages and wherein the advertisements are stored in electronic form, a method for presenting advertisements to a user by presenting a hypertext page for display on at a corresponding user computing device, wherein the advertisements are selected from a plurality of advertisements, the method comprising:

accepting a first set of search terms at the computer system from the user, directly or indirectly;

determining a search result based upon the first set of search terms;

storing a representation of at least part of the first set of search terms such that it is electronically accessible to the computer system;

sending a user computing device a first search result page representing a search result resulting from a search using at least a part of the stored representation, the first search result page including an immediate advertisement selected from the electronically stored advertisements based on one or both of the first set of search terms and at least a part of the stored representation;

selecting a future advertisement from the electronically stored advertisements based on at least the stored representations of the first set of search terms and on at least an approximation of a time difference between a time of display of the first search result page and a display time for a later page; and

presenting, at the user computing device, the future advertisement to the user as part of the later page presented at the user computing device subsequent to the viewing of the first search result page.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the first set of search terms includes storing a representation of at least one search term in a user profiler.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the first set of search terms includes storing a representation of at least one search term in a cookie.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein storing the first set of search terms further comprises associating at least one search term data element number to the stored first search term.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein selecting the future advertisement further comprises:

assigning an advertisement ID data element number to each of the plurality of advertisements, where the advertisement ID data element number is associated with an advertising type in an advertisement data structure;

comparing the search term data element number with the advertisement ID data element number; and

matching the data element number to the advertisement ID data element number when the data element number is equivalent to the advertisement ID data element number;

wherein the matched advertisement ID data element number associated with the advertising type is used to select the future advertisement for presentation to the user.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising accepting a second set of search terms;

determining a second search result based upon the second set of search terms;

storing a representation of at least part of the second set of search terms;

presenting the later page including at least a part of the second search result and the future advertisement;

selecting a next future advertisement based on at least the stored representations of the first set of search terms and the second set of search terms; and

presenting the next future advertisement as part of a next later page subsequent to the viewing of the later page.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the next future advertisement is available for selection during a next period of time after accepting the first and the second search terms.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the later page viewed is a web page.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the future advertisement is shown only if the later page is requested within a time frame.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting step occurs following receipt of a request from the user for the later page.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting step further comprises filtering advertisements from which the future advertisement is selected, the filtering based on at least time of search values, indicative of when search terms were used, and a time of filtering.

12. A method for presenting to a user a future advertisement from a plurality of advertisements, the method comprising:

receiving a search term of a search query into a search engine;

generating a search results web page including a plurality of documents, where the plurality of documents include a hypertext link for a next web page;

determining at least one advertisement type based on the search term;

setting an expiration period of time based on a time that the search term was received;

selecting one of the plurality of documents to view;

matching the advertisement type with at least one representation of a plurality of advertisements, where the advertisement type is associated with a subset of the advertisements;

selecting the future advertisement from the subset of the advertisements; and

presenting the future advertisement to the user, wherein the future advertisement is available for selection during the set expiration time.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein determining the at least one advertisement type further comprises setting a cookie to include data representing the at least one advertisement type upon a match.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein setting the expiration time includes setting the expiration time for the cookie.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein selecting one of the plurality of documents further comprises accessing the cookie to retrieve the data representing the advertisement type.

16. An advertisement generation system for presenting a future advertisement to a user based upon a first set search terms of a search query comprising:

a web server including a search engine and configured to receive the search query from the user and configured to present a search results page containing search query results from the search engine, the search results page including an immediate advertisement;

a user profiler configured to communicate a representation of one or more search characteristics associated with the search query to the search engine, the user profiler including a profiler data structure to store the one or more search characteristics where the search characteristics include the first set of search terms; and

an advertisement server coupled to the web server and the user profiler, where the advertisement server is configured to select the future advertisement based upon the first set of search terms and at least one characteristic of a page viewed subsequent to the search results page, the page viewed subsequent including the future advertisement.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the future advertisement is available for presentation to the user until a period of time expires.

18. The system of claim 16 further comprising an advertisement repository having logic and a repository data structure to store data representing a plurality of advertisements, the plurality of advertisements including the advertisement.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the search characteristics further comprises a user identifier and a time stamp, where the time stamp indicates the time at which the user uses the first set of search terms in the search query.

20. The advertisement generation system of claim 16, wherein the advertisement server further comprises:

storage for time of search values, including at least a time of search value for the first set of search terms; and

logic for determining when a difference between a time of serving the future advertisement and the time of search value exceeds a threshold difference and for using that threshold difference in at least one determination in selecting the future advertisement.

21. The advertisement generation system of claim 16, wherein the at least one characteristic of the page viewed subsequent to the search results page is a time of viewing of the page viewed subsequent.

22. An advertisement generation system for presenting a future advertisement to a user based upon a first user input associated with a first web page comprising:

a web server configured to receive the first user input and configured to present the first web page, wherein the first web page is responsive to the first user input, the first web page including an immediate advertisement;

a user profiler configured to communicate a representation of at least one user input characteristic associated with the first user input, the user profiler including a profiler data structure to store the at least one user input characteristic; and

an advertisement server coupled to the user profiler and to the web server, where the advertisement server is configured to select a future advertisement based upon the at least one user input characteristic and at least one characteristic of the first web page, wherein a second web page viewed subsequent to the first web page would include the future advertisement.

23. The system of claim 22, further comprising an advertisement repository having logic and a repository data structure to store data representing a plurality of advertisements, the plurality of advertisements including the future advertisement.

24. The system of claim 22, wherein the future advertisement is available for presentation to the user with the second web page until a period of time expires.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the at least one user input characteristic includes text entered in a chat room.

26. The system of claim 22, wherein the at least one user input characteristic includes an item purchased.

27. The advertisement generation system of claim 22, wherein the advertisement server further comprises:

storage for time of input values, including at least a time of input value for the first user input; and

logic for determining when a difference between a time of serving the future advertisement and the time of input value exceeds a threshold difference and for using that threshold difference in at least one determination in selecting the future advertisement.

28. The advertisement generation system of claim 22, wherein the at least one characteristic of the second web page is a time of viewing of the second web page.