Displaying paid search listings in proportion to advertiser spending

• US 7,454,409 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2003
• Issued: 11/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Overture Services Incorporated (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Singh, Narinder Pal, Roy, Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): LEROUX, ETIENNE PIERRE
• Application Number:
  US10/403,823
• Publication Number:
  US 20030220918A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,059 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/3, 707/10, 707/104.1, 705/14, 705/27, 725/109
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

In a pay for placement database search system, in which advertisers pay to include their search listings in a database to be provided with search results in response to queries from searchers, each advertiser decides how much money he wants to spend on a search term. The search provider displays the advertisers'"'"' listings in proportion to the amount of money the respective advertisers spend. This permits the advertisers to subscribe to the database search system, deciding how much to pay for a subscription for a predetermined time period. The search provider can recommend an optimal spend amount for the advertisers.

Claims

1. A business method for a database search system in which searchers submit search queries to a database and receive search listings including at least some advertiser-sponsored search listings, the business method comprising:

selling to respective advertisers a specified quantity of searcher engagements for a specified price; and

subsequently, providing search listings of respective advertisers in response to search queries and in proportion to the respective advertisers'"'"' specified quantity of searcher engagements.

receiving a search request;

determining for each respective advertiser a respective discrepancy value related to a respective number of searcher engagements received and a respective number of searcher engagements the each respective advertiser should have received; and

returning search listings according to the determined discrepancy value.

2. A business method for a database search system in which searchers submit search queries to a database and receive search listings including at least some advertiser-sponsored search listings, the business method comprising:

selling to respective advertisers a specified quantity of searcher engagements for a specified price;

subsequently, providing search listings of respective advertisers in response to search queries and in proportion to the respective advertisers'"'"'specified quantity of searcher engagements;

determining at least one of a cost per click for a respective advertiser, and an estimated number of clicks for the respective advertiser;

determining clickthrough rate for the respective advertiser based on historical data for a market implemented on the database search system; and

estimating the clickthrough rate as a ratio of a number of clicks a search listing of the respective advertiser has received to the number of impressions the search listing has received.

3. A computer readable storage medium storing computer readable computer code configured to implement a method for a database search system in which searchers submit search queries to a database and receive search listings including at least some advertiser-sponsored search listings, the computer readable computer code comprising:

first computer readable code for offering to respective advertisers a specified quantity of searcher engagements for a specified price, the searcher engagements including at least one of searcher impressions and searcher clickthroughs;

second computer readable code for providing search listings of respective advertisers in response to subsequently received search queries and in proportion to the respective advertisers'"'"'specified quantity of searcher engagements; and

third program code for optimizing a respective advertiser'"'"'s advertising spend based on the advertiser'"'"'s total advertising budget, the advertiser'"'"'s profit per clickthrough and an external rate of return.

4. The computer readable storage medium of claim 3 further comprising:

fourth computer program code for determining a budget scale factor for the respective advertiser.

5. A computer readable storage medium storing computer readable computer code configured to implement a method for a database search system in which searchers submit search queries to a database and receive search listings including at least some advertiser-sponsored search listings, the computer readable computer code comprising:

first computer readable code for offering to respective advertisers a specified quantity of searcher engagements for a specified price, the searcher engagements including at least one of searcher impressions and searcher clickthroughs;

second computer readable code for providing search listings of respective advertisers in response to subsequently received search queries and in proportion to the respective advertisers'"'"'specified quantity of searcher engagements;

third program code for optimizing a respective advertiser'"'"'s advertising spend based on the advertiser'"'"'s total advertising budget, the advertiser'"'"'s profit per clickthrough and an external rate of return; and

fourth computer program code for determining a budget scale factor for the respective advertiser,

wherein in the fourth computer program is configured to;

first solve for all zero constraints and traffic constraints;

determine a number of free spaces on a page of search results to be provided in response to a search query not taken up by advertisers at a traffic limit and a number of advertisers not currently at a zero limit or a traffic limit; and

solving a system of equations to determine the respective advertiser'"'"'s budget constraint.