Mapping network addresses to geographical locations

• US 8,364,816 B2
• Filed: 10/12/2007
• Issued: 01/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/12/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Guo, Chuanxiong, Wang, Jiahe H., Yu, Qing, Zhang, Yongguang, Liu, Yunxin
• Primary Examiner(s): Backer, Firmin
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chambers, Michael A
• Application Number:
  US11/871,810
• Publication Number:
  US 20090100005A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,936 Days
• Field of Search: 709/225, 709/200, 709/228, 370/229
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/50 Address allocation

Abstract

A network address mapping system is described. The network address mapping system can identify a set of Web pages, collects information from the Web pages indicating geographical locations (“geolocations”), and correlate the geolocations with the network addresses from which the identified Web pages are served. The collected information can be weighted based on various factors, such as its relative position in a Web page. The collected information can then be used to identify a geolocation. The network mapping system can deduce geolocations for portions of ranges of network addresses based on the score, and can infer geolocations for other portions based on the deduced geolocations. This mapping can then be stored in a database and provided as a geomapping service. The network address mapping system is able to map network addresses to geographical locations. Thereafter, when a user'"'"'s client computing device accesses a Web server, the Web server can easily and accurately determine a geographical location by querying the database storing the mapping or a geomapping service.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computing device for mapping network addresses to geographical locations, comprising:

identifying a set of resources in a network, each resource stored at one or more servers of the network;

correlating a network address associated with a server corresponding to the identified resource wherein the correlating comprises;

retrieving content associated with the resource wherein the content is content in a Web page;

identifying geographical information contained in the content;

scoring the identified geographical information; and

processing the scored geographical information to identify a geographical location to which the network address associated with the server should be mapped;

clustering the correlations in increasingly larger ranges of network addresses;

filtering the clustered correlations so that a range of network addresses is mapped to a geographical location wherein the filtering comprises inferring a geographical location by iteratively expanding a range of network addresses to map a network address to the inferred geographical location, wherein the filtering includes;

filling in missing geographical location with an identified geographical location when a majority of the network addresses in the range are mapped to the identified geographical location and correcting a geographical location to be the same as the identified graphical location; and

storing the mapped correlation.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the processing includes:

identifying correspondences between the scored geographical information and the identified geographical information;

computing a location weight vector for the network address associated with the server;

selecting the location with the greatest weight vector;

and mapping the network address associated with the server to the selected location.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein when a geographical information is (a) inferred and mapped or (b) corrected, repeating the inferring and filling in.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein when a geographical information is (a) inferred and mapped or (b) filled in, repeating the inferring and filling in.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the content is a telephone number displayed to users who navigate to the Web page.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the content is a common abbreviation for a geographical address.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the score for content varies based on a position of the content.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the score is higher when the position is near a bottom.

5. A computer-readable storage device storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computing device to perform a method for mapping network addresses to geographical locations, the method comprising:

identifying a set of Web pages in a network, each Web page stored at one or more Web servers of the network;

retrieving content associated with at least one of the identified Web pages;

identifying geographical information contained in the content;

scoring the identified geographical information; and

processing the scored geographical information to identify a geographical location to which the network address associated with the Web server should be mapped, comprising;

identifying correspondences between the scored geographical information and the identified geographical information;

computing a location weight vector for the network address associated with the Web server;

selecting the geographical location with the greatest weight vector; and

mapping the network address associated with the Web server to the selected geographical location;

correlating an Internet Protocol address associated with a Web server corresponding to the at least one Web page;

iteratively clustering the correlations in increasingly larger ranges of network addresses; and

filtering the iteratively clustered correlations so that a range of network addresses is mapped to the selected geographical location, wherein the filtering includes;

filling in missing geographical location with an identified geographical location when a majority of the network addresses in the range are mapped to the identified geographical location and correcting a geographical location to be the same as the identified geographical location.

6. The computer-readable storage device of claim 5 further comprising inferring a geographical location by iteratively expanding a range of network addresses to map a network address to the inferred geographical location.

7. The computer-readable storage device of claim 6 further comprising filling in missing geographical location with an identified geographical location when a majority of the network addresses in the range are mapped to the identified geographical location.

8. A system for mapping network addresses to geographical locations, comprising:

a storage system that stores indications of uniform resource locations;

retrieval component that retrieves a Web page identified by at least one of the uniform resource locations;

an execution engine that includes a component for mapping network addresses to geographical locations based on geographical information contained in the Web page;

a correlation component that correlates the geographical information with a geographical location and iteratively clusters the correlations in increasingly larger ranges of network addresses; and

a component that filters correlated geographical information by inferring geographical locations for network address ranges for which geographical information could not be mapped, wherein the filtering includes;

filling in missing geographical location with an identified geographical location when a majority of the network addresses in the range are mapped to the identified geographical location and correcting a geographical location to be the same as the identified geographical location.

9. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component that scores the stored geographical information.

10. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component that filters correlated geographical information by replacing a first geographical location for a network address range with a second geographical location for the network address range when a majority of smaller portions of the network address range indicate the second geographical location.

11. The system of claim 8 further comprising a component that filters correlated geographical information by mapping a portion of a network address range to a geographical location when a majority of other portions of the network address range indicate the geographical location.

12. The system of claim 8 wherein the execution engine is a distributed execution engine wherein a correlation component executes in each of multiple computing devices associated with the execution engine.

13. The system of claim 8 further comprising a service component that receives a network address and provides a geographical location to which the network address is mapped.