Content delivery network with customized tracking of delivery data

• US 9,130,828 B2
• Filed: 07/15/2013
• Issued: 09/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: StackPath LLC
• Original Assignee: Highwinds Holdings, Inc.
• Inventors: Gagliardi, Joshua D., Munger, Timothy S., Ploesser, Donald W., Spencer, Deborah A.
• Primary Examiner(s): BUI, JONATHAN A
• Application Number:
  US13/942,577
• Publication Number:
  US 20140025811A1
• Time in Patent Office: 785 Days
• Field of Search: 709/219, 709/223, 709/224, 709/225, 709/226
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data

Abstract

A custom tracking system can provide functionality for operators of content sites to specify types of content delivery data to be tracked in a content delivery network. The custom tracking system can propagate operator tracking preferences to edge nodes in the content delivery network, such as delivery servers, which can track delivery data according to the preferences. The custom tracking system can use one or more tracking filters to reduce the storage burden of certain tracking requests while still providing relevant results. The custom tracking system can output results of the custom tracking for presentation to the content site operator.

Claims

1. A method of allowing an operator of a content site to specify content delivery statistics to be gathered by a content delivery network, the method comprising:

hosting content associated with a content site on a content delivery network, the content delivery network comprising one or more delivery servers operative to deliver the content to end users of the content site;

outputting a custom tracking user interface for presentation to the operator of the content site with one or more processors, the custom tracking user interface providing functionality for the operator of the content site to specify one or more types of content delivery data to be tracked by the content delivery network and to specify one or more data sources for tracking the selected type of content delivery data;

receiving a custom tracking request from the content site operator with the custom tracking user interface, the custom tracking request identifying a selected type of content delivery data to be tracked and one or more selected data sources for tracking the selected type of content delivery data, wherein the selected one or more data sources comprise one or both of an HTTP cookie and an HTTP header;

instructing the one or more delivery servers to track the selected type of content delivery data using the specified one or more data sources;

receiving content delivery data from the one or more delivery servers responsive to said instructing; and

outputting a reporting user interface comprising at least a portion of the content delivery data for presentation to the content site operator.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said instructing the one or more delivery servers comprises instructing the one or more delivery servers to access key-value data associated with the specified one or more sources.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the key-value data comprises one or more of the following:

user preferences, end user device types, end user operating system types, end user demographic information, affiliate marketing codes, and redirections to user information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the custom tracking user interface further comprises functionality for the operator of the content site to specify one or more reporting formats of the content delivery data to be shown in the reporting user interface.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more reporting formats include one or more of the following:

a table, a histogram, a percentage, a ratio, a sum, and a map.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein instructing the one or more delivery servers to track the selected type of content delivery data comprises communicating the selected type of content delivery data to the one or more delivery servers using a web service.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the reporting user interface is configured to push the content delivery data to a computer system of the operator of the content site.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising cross-tabulating the delivery data with the one or more delivery servers to produce condensed delivery data and providing the condensed delivery data from the one or more delivery servers to a usage server, such that as delivery traffic increases in the content delivery network, a volume of the cross-tabulated delivery data increases at a slower rate than a rate of increase in the delivery traffic.

9. A system for allowing an operator of a content site to specify content delivery data to be gathered by a content delivery network, the system comprising:

a computer storage device storing;

content management code executing on a content delivery network, the content management code operative to provide a first user interface accessible by an operator of a content site, the first user interface providing functionality for the operator of the content site to upload content to a content delivery network, the content delivery network operative to deliver the content to end users of the content site from one or more delivery servers in response to receiving requests to serve the content, the one or more delivery servers being edge nodes in the content delivery network;

custom tracking code, the custom tracking code operative to output a second user interface for display to the operator of the content site with one or more processors, the second user interface providing functionality for the operator of the content site to specify types of content delivery data to be tracked by the content delivery network and to specify one or more data sources for tracking the specified types of content delivery data, the second user interface further operative to provide the types of content delivery data to be tracked to the one or more delivery servers, such that the one or more delivery servers are operative to obtain the content delivery data using the one or more data sources, wherein the one or more data sources comprise one or more of the following;

an HTTP cookie and an HTTP header; and

reporting code operative to output the content delivery data for presentation to the operator of the content site in a reporting user interface.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the data comprises one or more of the following:

key-value pairs, user preferences, end user device types, end user operating system types, end user demographic information, and affiliate marketing codes.