Methods and system for search engine revenue maximization in internet advertising
First Claim
1. A method for selecting and displaying links to paid advertisements of an advertiser selected from a portfolio of such advertisements in response to a user inquiry, said method comprising the steps of:
- in a server device operated by a search engine service provider, establishing a data base containing an associative network comprising probabilistic associations between each advertisement in the portfolio and each keyword in a list of keywords, such that in response to entry of a particular keyword contained in the list by a user at a remote client device, complementary links to advertisements are displayed to the user at the remote client device which do not contain the particular keyword but still have substantial probability of being visited by the user and recognized as relevant to the search objectives;
in a server device operated by a search engine service provider, representing integrated search histories as an associative network, in which associative probabilities for the entire portfolio of advertisements and the list of keywords are stored and updated according to the actions of all users, such that each user'"'"'s input during a given search session becomes part of the overall record of searches, and is thus used to optimize all future searches similarly;
in a particular search session, initiated by a user at a user device, using such probabilistic associations stored by said data base and said associative probabilities stored by said associative network at a server device to compute near-optimal combinations of complementary links responsive to a user entering a keyword by way of said user device, wherein said complementary links and the corresponding advertisements do not contain user-entered keywords but still have substantial probability of being visited by the user and recognized as relevant to the search objectives, andidentifying the complementary links offering the highest expected revenue for the search engine service provider based on the compensation paid by the advertiser to the search engine service provider and the probability of the user visiting the link in response to a particular search and displaying the identified complementary links offering the highest expected revenue for the search engine service provider to the user at the user device.
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Abstract
A method for improving Search Engine revenues from advertisements by selecting and displaying advertisements from a portfolio of advertisements that are likely to attract user traffic while maximizing the expected Search Engine revenues. Conventionally, each sponsored advertisement in the Search Engine portfolio is associated with one or more keywords from a list of advertiser sponsored keywords, such that if a user enters a keyword contained in an advertisement in the portfolio, a corresponding sponsored link is displayed. According to this invention, in addition to the sponsored links, complementary links can be displayed to some of the paid advertisements containing none of the user-entered keywords. The method for computing the complementary links is based on “overlapping queries” and “overlapping intent” models. With the help of such models, integrated search histories are represented as an associative network, in which associative probabilities for the entire list of keywords and the entire portfolio of advertisements are stored and updated according to the actions of all users, such that each user'"'"'s input during a given search session becomes part of the overall record of searches, and is thus used to optimize all future searches. In a particular search session, the associative probabilities are used to compute revenue-maximizing combinations of complementary links and displaying such combinations in addition to the sponsored links.
93 Citations
14 Claims
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1. A method for selecting and displaying links to paid advertisements of an advertiser selected from a portfolio of such advertisements in response to a user inquiry, said method comprising the steps of:
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in a server device operated by a search engine service provider, establishing a data base containing an associative network comprising probabilistic associations between each advertisement in the portfolio and each keyword in a list of keywords, such that in response to entry of a particular keyword contained in the list by a user at a remote client device, complementary links to advertisements are displayed to the user at the remote client device which do not contain the particular keyword but still have substantial probability of being visited by the user and recognized as relevant to the search objectives; in a server device operated by a search engine service provider, representing integrated search histories as an associative network, in which associative probabilities for the entire portfolio of advertisements and the list of keywords are stored and updated according to the actions of all users, such that each user'"'"'s input during a given search session becomes part of the overall record of searches, and is thus used to optimize all future searches similarly; in a particular search session, initiated by a user at a user device, using such probabilistic associations stored by said data base and said associative probabilities stored by said associative network at a server device to compute near-optimal combinations of complementary links responsive to a user entering a keyword by way of said user device, wherein said complementary links and the corresponding advertisements do not contain user-entered keywords but still have substantial probability of being visited by the user and recognized as relevant to the search objectives, and identifying the complementary links offering the highest expected revenue for the search engine service provider based on the compensation paid by the advertiser to the search engine service provider and the probability of the user visiting the link in response to a particular search and displaying the identified complementary links offering the highest expected revenue for the search engine service provider to the user at the user device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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Specification