Method and apparatus for building sales tools by mining data from websites

• US 8,560,518 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2012
• Issued: 10/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bangalore, Srinivas, Feng, Junlan, Gilbert, Mazin, Wilpon, Jay Gordon
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Leslie
• Application Number:
  US13/690,444
• Publication Number:
  US 20130159828A1
• Time in Patent Office: 319 Days
• Field of Search: 707/726, 707/708, 707/710, 707/999.107, 707/999.01, 709/203, 709/219
• US Class Current: 707/708
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

A website mining tool is disclosed that extracts information from, for example, a company'"'"'s website and presents the extracted information in a graphical user interface (GUI). In one embodiment, web pages from a website are stored in, for example, computer memory and a structure of the web pages is identified. A plurality of blocks of information is then extracted as a function of this structure and a category is assigned to each block of information. The elements in the blocks of information are then displayed, for example to a salesperson, as a function of these categories. In another embodiment, Document Object Modeling parsing is used to identify the structure of the web pages. In yet another embodiment, a support vector machine is used to categorize each block of information.

Claims

1. A method for characterizing a plurality of extensible markup language documents, the method comprising:

extracting a plurality of blocks of information from the plurality of extensible markup language documents;

assigning a block of information in the plurality of blocks of information to a task complexity category in a plurality of categories, the block of information comprising a value indicative of a number of extensible markup language documents in the plurality of extensible markup language documents and a value indicative of a number of links associated with the plurality of extensible markup language documents;

associating a task complexity with the plurality of extensible markup language documents based on the block of information and a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents; and

characterizing the plurality of extensible markup language documents based on the task complexity.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises a link to another extensible markup language document of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

traversing the plurality of extensible markup language documents by following each link of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine the structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises:

parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents using document object model parsing.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises:

downloading the plurality of extensible markup language documents to a local disk.

7. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

displaying the structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

8. An apparatus for characterizing a plurality of extensible markup language documents, the apparatus comprising:

a processor; and

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory to store computer program instructions, the computer program instructions when executed on the processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

extracting a plurality of blocks of information from the plurality of extensible markup language documents;

assigning a block of information in the plurality of blocks of information to a task complexity category in a plurality of categories, the block of information comprising a value indicative of a number of extensible markup language documents in the plurality of extensible markup language documents and a value indicative of a number of links associated with the plurality of extensible markup language documents;

associating a task complexity with the plurality of extensible markup language documents based on the block of information and a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents; and

characterizing the plurality of extensible markup language documents based on the task complexity.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein each of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises a link to another extensible markup language document of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, the operations further comprising:

traversing the plurality of extensible markup language documents by following each link of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, the operations further comprising:

parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine the structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises:

parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents using document object model parsing.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises:

downloading the plurality of extensible markup language documents to a local disk.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, the operations further comprising:

displaying the structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

15. A computer readable storage device storing computer program instructions for characterizing a plurality of extensible markup language documents, the computer program instructions when executed on a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

extracting a plurality of blocks of information from the plurality of extensible markup language documents;

assigning a block of information in the plurality of blocks of information to a task complexity category in a plurality of categories, the block of information comprising a value indicative of a number of extensible markup language documents in the plurality of extensible markup language documents and a value indicative of a number of links associated with the plurality of extensible markup language documents;

associating a task complexity with the plurality of extensible markup language documents based on the block of information and a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents; and

characterizing the plurality of extensible markup language documents based on the task complexity.

16. The computer readable storage device of claim 15 wherein each of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises a link to another extensible markup language document of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

17. The computer readable storage device of claim 16, the operations further comprising:

traversing the plurality of extensible markup language documents by following each link of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

18. The computer readable storage device of claim 15, the operations further comprising:

parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine the structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents.

19. The computer readable storage device of claim 18 wherein parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises:

parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents using document object model parsing.

20. The computer readable storage device of claim 18 wherein parsing the plurality of extensible markup language documents to determine a structural hierarchy of the plurality of extensible markup language documents comprises:

downloading the plurality of extensible markup language documents to a local disk.