Bidding on pending, query term-based advertising opportunities

• US 9,129,312 B1
• Filed: 01/25/2005
• Issued: 09/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Scholl, Nathaniel B., Betz, Stephan G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Retta, Yehdega
• Application Number:
  US11/043,499
• Time in Patent Office: 3,878 Days
• Field of Search: 705 141- 1473
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A facility for bidding on a pending advertising opportunity is described. The facility receives at an advertiser a notification from a publisher. The notification contains keywords relating to a content request received by the publisher, and is sent by the publisher between its receipt of the content request and its dispatch of a content response responsive to the content request. In response to receiving the notification, the facility sends to the publisher a dynamic bid. The dynamic bid specifies an advertising message and a bid amount that the advertiser is willing to pay to present the advertising message in connection with a content response responsive to the content request produced by the publisher.

Claims

1. A method in a computing system for auctioning pending query-based advertising opportunities, comprising:

receiving at a search engine computer system a search request from a client computer system, said search request containing a search query;

in the search engine computer system, in response to receiving the transmitted search request;

transmitting notifications of the search request containing the search query contained by the search request and a current high bid price in a pending auction for the search query to one or more advertiser computer systems;

generating a search result using the search query;

in at least a distinguished one of the advertiser computer systems, in response to receiving a transmitted notification;

determining to bid for placement of an advertising message in connection with the search result generated for the search query in response to the search request;

designating an advertising message;

designating an advertising hyperlink;

determining a bid amount; and

transmitting a dynamic bid to the search engine computer system specifying the designated advertising message, the designated advertising hyperlink, and the determined bid amount;

in the search engine computer system, at a time after transmitting the notifications;

comparing dynamic bids received subsequent to receipt of the search request to each other and to any static bids received prior to receipt of the search request matching the search query to select one or more bids;

creating a response to the search request containing the generated search result and, for each selected one or more bids, the advertising message and advertising hyperlink specified by the selected bid; and

transmitting the created response to the search request to the client computer system.

2. A method for auctioning advertising opportunities, comprising:

receiving, at a search engine computer system, a search request from a user computer device, the search request specifying a search query;

applying the search request to an index of the search engine computer system to produce a search result;

in response to receiving the search request, sending to an advertiser computer system a dynamic bid solicitation containing a copy of the search query and a current high bid price in a pending auction for including an advertisement in a response to the search request generated by the search engine computer system to include at least a portion of the search result;

after sending the advertiser computer system the dynamic bid solicitation, receiving from the advertiser computer system a dynamic bid specifying a bid amount and an advertising message to be included in the response to the search request in exchange for said bid amount;

comparing the dynamic bid to other bids applicable to the search request at the search engine computer system; and

based upon the comparison, determining whether to include the specified advertising message in the search response.

3. A computing system for auctioning advertising opportunities, comprising:

a first receiver that receives a search request from a user, the search request specifying a search query;

a search engine that applies the search request to an index to produce a search result;

a sender that, in response to receiving the search request, sends an advertiser computer system a dynamic bid solicitation containing a copy of the search query and a current high bid price in a pending auction for including an advertisement in a response to the search request generated by the search engine;

a second receiver that, after sending the advertiser computer system the dynamic bid solicitation, receives from the advertiser computer system a dynamic bid specifying a bid amount and an advertising message to be included in the response to the search request in exchange for said bid amount;

a comparison subsystem that compares the dynamic bid to other bids applicable to the search request; and

a search response generation subsystem that, based upon the comparison, determines whether to include the specified advertising message in a search response.

4. A method for allocating advertising opportunities, comprising:

when a content request is received from a user computing device to a search engine computer system, sending an advertiser computer system a dynamic bid invitation containing keywords relating to the content request and a current high bid price in a pending auction for including an advertisement in a response to the content request generated by the search engine computer system;

after sending the advertiser computer system a dynamic bid invitation containing keywords relating to the content request, receiving from the advertiser computer system to the search engine computer system a dynamic bid specifying a bid amount and an advertising message to be included in the response to the content request in exchange for said bid amount;

comparing the dynamic bid to other bids applicable to the content request using the search engine computer system; and

based upon the comparison, determining whether to include the specified advertising message in the content response.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the received content request is a search request specifying a search query.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the sent dynamic bid invitation containing keywords relating to the content request includes keywords included in the search query.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the dynamic bid invitation is sent to the advertiser computer system only where the set of keywords do not match a list of prohibited terms specified by a content provider that received the content request.

8. The method of claim 4 wherein the dynamic bid invitation is sent to the advertiser computer system only where the set of keywords do not match a list of prohibited terms specified by the advertiser computer system.

9. The method of claim 4 wherein the dynamic bid invitation is sent to the advertiser computer system only where the set of keywords matches a list of necessary terms specified by the advertiser computer system.

10. The method of claim 4, further comprising reviewing cached dynamic bids earlier received from the advertiser computer system,

and wherein the dynamic bid invitation is sent to the advertiser computer system only where the set of keywords does not match sets of keywords associated with the cached dynamic bids,

and wherein, where the set of keywords matches a set of keywords associated with a distinguished cached dynamic bid, the distinguished cached dynamic bid is compared with other bids applicable to the content request.

11. The method of claim 4, further comprising adding the received dynamic bid to a cache of earlier-received dynamic bids.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising removing the received dynamic bid from the cache in response to an asynchronous request from the advertiser computer system.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising transmitting a report of dynamic bids received from the advertiser computer system that are active in the cache.

14. The method of claim 4, further comprising notifying the advertiser computer system that, based at least in part on the received dynamic bid, the specified advertising message was included in a search response generated in response to the search request.

15. The method of claim 4, further comprising notifying the advertiser computer system of characteristics of a bid other than the received dynamic bid for which an advertising message was included in a search response generated in response to the search request.

16. The method of claim 4 wherein a dynamic bid invitation is sent to a plurality of distinguished advertiser computer systems.

17. The method of claim 4 wherein one of the other bids applicable to the content request to which the dynamic bid is compared is a second dynamic bid.

18. The method of claim 4 wherein one of the other bids applicable to the content request to which the dynamic bid is compared is a prospective bid.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to perform a method for auctioning advertising opportunities, the method comprising:

when a search request specifying a search query is received, sending an advertiser computer system one or more keywords contained in the search query;

after sending the advertiser computer system a copy of the search query, receiving from the advertiser computer system a dynamic bid specifying a bid amount for a pending auction for said one or more keywords and specifying an advertising message;

comparing the dynamic bid to other bids applicable to the search request; and

based upon the comparison, including the specified advertising message in a search response generated in response to the search request.