System and method for estimating organic web traffic from a secured source

• US 9,202,228 B2
• Filed: 02/06/2015
• Issued: 12/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Brightedge Technologies Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Brightedge Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Park, Lemuel S., Liao, Lennon, Yu, Sammy, Yu, Jimmy
• Primary Examiner(s): Osman, Ramy M
• Application Number:
  US14/615,489
• Publication Number:
  US 20150178748A1
• Time in Patent Office: 298 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2441 relying on flow classification, e.g. using integrated services [IntServ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows

Abstract

One embodiment includes a method for estimating web traffic to a website. The method includes obtaining a subset of first set of reporting information from a secured external source and a second set of reporting information from a unsecured external source. The first set of reporting information includes a corresponding set of secured reporting information which is not provided. The method also includes generating an estimation of the amount of traffic directed to the website from the secured external source by correlating the second set of reporting information with the first set of reporting information, and obtaining an estimated revenue value of the traffic from both the secured external source and unsecured external source based on the estimation of the amount of traffic directed to the website from the secured external source and an amount traffic directed to the website from the unsecured external source.

Claims

1. A method to estimate web traffic to a website using a processor-based computing device programmed to perform the method by the processor-based computing device executing instructions stored in a non-transitory tangible computer readable storage medium, the method comprising:

obtaining a subset of reporting information of a first set of reporting information from a secured external source that directs traffic to a website, the subset of reporting information having a corresponding portion of secured reporting information in the first set of reporting information which is known by the secured external source but which is not provided from the secured external source, wherein the subset of reporting information is secured search results and comprises a keyword;

obtaining a second set of reporting information from a unsecured external source that directs traffic to the website by performing a search using the keyword of the subset of reporting information, the second set of reporting information being different than the subset of reporting information;

generating an estimation of an amount of traffic directed to the website from the secured external source by correlating the second set of reporting information from the unsecured external source with the subset of reporting information from the secured external source; and

obtaining an estimated revenue value of the traffic resulting from a search using the keyword from both the secured external source and unsecured external source based on the estimation of the amount of traffic directed to the website from the secured external source and an amount traffic directed to the website from the unsecured external source provided in the second set of reporting information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the secured external source is a secured search engine and the first set of reporting information is secured search results.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the unsecured external source is a unsecured search engine or a toolbar search program.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the secured external source is a search engine in a secured mode and the unsecured external source is the search engine in an unsecured mode such that the secured external source and the unsecured external source is the same search engine.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the secured external source and the unsecured external source direct traffic to a webpage of the website.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining an estimated number of conversions of the traffic from the secured external source based on a number of conversions from the traffic from the unsecured external source.

7. A system to estimate web traffic to a website, the system comprising:

one or more processor based computing devices; and

one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media that includes instructions that when executed by the processor based computing devices cause the processor based computing devices to perform operations to estimate web traffic to a website, the operations including;

obtaining a subset of reporting information of a first set of reporting information from a secured external source that directs traffic to the website, the subset of reporting information having a corresponding portion of secured reporting information in the first set of reporting information which is known by the secured external source but which is not provided from the secured external source, wherein the subset of reporting information is secured search results and comprises a keyword;

obtaining a second set of reporting information from a unsecured external source that directs traffic to the website by performing a search using the keyword of the subset of reporting information, the second set of reporting information being different than the subset of reporting information;

generating an estimation of an amount of traffic directed to the website from the secured external source by correlating the second set of reporting information from the unsecured external source with the subset of reporting information from the secured external source; and

obtaining an estimated revenue value of the traffic resulting from a search using the keyword from both the secured external source and unsecured external source based on the estimation of the amount of traffic directed to the website from the secured external source and an amount traffic directed to the website from the unsecured external source provided in the second set of reporting information.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the secured external source is a secured search engine and the first set of reporting information is secured search results.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the unsecured external source is a unsecured search engine or a toolbar search program.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the secured external source is a search engine in a secured mode and the unsecured external source is the search engine in an unsecured mode such that the secured external source and the unsecured external source is the same search engine.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the secured external source and the unsecured external source direct traffic to a webpage of the website.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise obtaining an estimated number of conversions of the traffic from the secured external source based on a number of conversions from the traffic from the unsecured external source.