Method and system for using a network analysis system to verify content on a website

• US 8,762,280 B1
• Filed: 11/01/2010
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Provos, Niels, Sharma, Jayesh, Gharachorloo, Kourosh, Rajaram, Gokul, Bennett, Victor, Agrawal, Shrish
• Primary Examiner(s): Huang, Tsan-Yu J
• Application Number:
  US12/917,190
• Time in Patent Office: 1,331 Days
• Field of Search: 705/51, 705/59, 726/1, 726 26- 30
• US Class Current: 705/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6209 to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity

Abstract

A system and method for verifying content on a network site is provided. A document such as a website is identified. The document is accessed over a network from a content provider system connected to the network to obtain information about the document. Through an automated process, using the information about the document to determine whether the document conforms to one or more predetermined rules associated with the content provider system governing the usage of content in the document.

Claims

1. A method for verifying content associated with a first document, the method comprising:

identifying, by one or more computers and in a first document, a first link to a first external network site that is different from a network site in which the first document is included;

obtaining, by one or more computers, content of a second document that is stored at a network location referenced by the first link, the second document having a first degree of separation from the first document;

obtaining, by one or more computers and in the second document, content of a third document that is referenced by a second link included in the second document, wherein the second link is to a second external network site that is different from the first external network site and the network site, the third document having a second degree of separation from the first document;

determining whether to approve the first document based on the content of the second document and the content of the third document, the determination comprising;

determining, based on the second document having the first degree of separation, whether the content of the second document is compliant content based on a first set of compliance rules; and

determining, based on the third document having the degree of separation, whether the content of the third document is compliant content based on a second set of compliance rules that are different from the first set of compliance rules; and

transmitting a signal specifying whether the first document is approved based on the determining.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and the second document comprise at least one of a network site identified in a received document or a network site of a document publisher.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein identifying the first link comprises identifying a domain that was submitted by the document publisher.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising transmitting one or more documents to the document publisher for delivery to users who access a website associated with the document publisher.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein identifying the first link comprises identifying a domain that appeared in a referrer field of a http request.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether to approve the first document comprises determining whether computer code provided for use in display the first and the second document has been modified.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether to approve the first document comprises verifying website ownership information associated with the first and the second document, wherein the website ownership information is received from a third party website-ownership database system.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether to approve the first document comprises determining whether a publisher of the first and the second document has permission to publish the content in the first and the second document, respectively.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein determining action whether to approve the first document comprises searching for at least one of the following in the first and the second document:

specific text or phrases;

scripting language that enables viewers to interact with the document, wherein the scripting language code further interacts with code related to displaying documents on a network site;

absence of code related to a document; and

any modification to code provided to a publisher of the document.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising repeating the obtaining and determining actions using a set of indirectly linked documents that are within a specified number of degrees of separation from the first document.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first document is hosted by a particular domain, and wherein the set of indirectly linked documents are hosted by a same domain.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising crawling website content based on information received at a user'"'"'s computer.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the obtaining comprises identifying a website accessed by a user'"'"'s web browser.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the crawling is performed by a plurality of plug-in programs at a plurality of user computers passing results of their respective determining actions to the one or more computers.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the content includes content associated with a search engine, banner network, web content licensor, e-commerce retailer, and hosting provider.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising compiling a list of a plurality of documents to be accessed.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising crawling Internet content by the one or more computers.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and the second document comprise target network sites accessible through the network.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and the second document comprise web pages accessible through the network.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending advertising content over the network based on a determination that the first document is approved.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein determining whether the content of the third document is compliant comprises determining whether the content of the third document is compliant based on a second set of compliance rules that is less restrictive than the first set of compliance rules.