System and method for estimating prevalence of digital content on the world-wide-web

• US 9,514,479 B2
• Filed: 01/06/2014
• Issued: 12/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Original Assignee: The Nielsen Company LLC (MOOD Media Corporation)
• Inventors: Lauckhart, Gregory J., Horman, Craig B., Korol, Christa, Bartot, James T.
• Primary Examiner(s): MACILWINEN, JOHN MOORE JAIN
• Application Number:
  US14/147,618
• Publication Number:
  US 20140122224A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,065 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

The present invention is a system, method and computer program product for tracking and measuring digital content that is distributed on a computer network such as the Internet. The system collects online advertisement data, analyzes the data, and uses the data to calculate measurements of the prevalence of those advertisements. The system processes raw traffic data by cleansing and summarizing the traffic data prior to storing the processed data in a database. An advertisement sampling system uses site selection and definition criteria and a probe map to retrieve Web pages from the Internet, extract advertisements from those Web pages, classify each advertisement, and store the data in a database. A statistical summarization system accesses the processed raw traffic data and the advertisement data in the database to calculate advertising prevalence statistics including the advertising frequency, impressions, and spending.

Claims

1. A system for comprising:

a processor to execute instructions to;

transmit a first number of first webpage requests via a computer network to a webpage server computer, the first webpage request identifying a particular webpage of a website hosted by the webpage server computer,

extract instances of media objects from webpage response received via the computer network in response to the first webpage requests;

determine that a subset of the instances of the media objects are a same identified media object;

determine a second number of times that the identified media object is included in the webpage responses, wherein the first number is greater than the second number;

an estimating device to;

determine an estimated rotation rate for the identified media object based on the first number and the second number by dividing the second number of times by the first number of times and

monitor second webpage requests transmitted via the computer network by computing devices of an audience of the website to determine an audience estimate of a number of times that the audience has requested the webpage; and

a statistical summarization system including a processor to multiply the estimated rotation rate by the audience estimate to estimate a third number of times that the identified media object has been presented to the audience via transmissions of the webpage via the computer network.

2. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the identified media object is an advertisement to be presented in association with the webpage.

3. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the number of times that the audience has requested the webpage is determined from information received from a panelist computer.

4. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the number of times that the audience has requested the webpage is determined from a proxy that receives communications in the computer network.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is to execute the instructions to extract instances of media objects from webpage responses by:

simulating display of a webpage response in the webpage responses; and

executing executable instructions included in the webpage response to generate the identified media object.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is to execute the instructions to extract instances of media objects from webpage responses by:

transforming a webpage response in the webpage responses into an extensible markup language; and

parsing the extensible markup language to identify a tag indicative of the identified media object.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is to execute the instructions to determine that a subset of the instances of the media objects are the same identified media object by:

extracting a click-through-uniform resource locator from a first one of the instances; and

determining that a first instance and a second instance belong to the subset in response to determining that the second instance is associated with the click-through-uniform resource locator.

8. A method comprising:

transmitting a first number of first webpage requests via a computer network to a webpage server computer, the first webpage requests identifying a particular webpage of a website hosted by the webpage server computer,

extracting instances of media objects from webpage responses received via the computer network in response to the first webpage requests;

determining that a subset of the instances of the media objects are a same identified media object;

determining a second number of times that the identified media object is included in the webpage responses, wherein the first number is greater than the second number;

determining an estimated rotation rate for the identified media object based on the first number and the second number by dividing the second number of times by the first number of times;

monitoring second webpage requests transmitted via the computer network by computing device of an audience of the website to determining an audience estimate of a number of times that the audience has requested the webpage; and

multiplying the estimated rotation rate by the audience estimate to estimate a third number of times that the identified media object has been presented to the audience via transmissions of the webpage via the computer network.

9. The method as defined in claim 8, wherein the identified media object is an advertisement to be presented in association with the webpage.

10. The method as defined in claim 8, wherein the number of times that the audience has requested the webpage is determined based on information received from at least one panelist computer.

11. The method as defined in claim 8, wherein at least a portion of the number of times that the audience has requested the webpage is determined from a proxy that receives communications in the computer network.

12. A computer readable storage disk or storage device comprising instructions that when executed cause a machine to at least:

transmit a first number of first webpage requests via a computer network to a webpage server computer, the first webpage requests identifying a particular webpage of a website hosted by the webpage server computer,

extract instances of media objects from webpage responses received via the computer network in response to the first webpage requests;

determine that a subset of the instances of the media objects are a same identified media object;

determine a second number of times that the identified media object is included in the webpage responses, wherein the first number is greater than the second number;

determine an estimated rotation rate for the identified media object based on the first number and the second number by dividing the second number of times by the first number of times;

monitor second webpage requests transmitted via the computer network by computing devices of an audience of the webpage to determine an audience estimate of a number of times that the audience has requested the webpage; and

multiply the estimated rotation rate by the audience estimate to estimate a third number of times that the identified media object has been presented to the audience via transmissions of the webpage via the computer network.

13. The computer readable storage disk or storage device as defined in claim 12, wherein the identified media object is an advertisement to be presented in association with the webpage.

14. The computer readable storage disk or storage device as defined in claim 12, wherein the number of times that the audience has requested the webpage is determined based on information received from a panelist computer.

15. The computer readable storage disk or storage device as defined in claim 12, wherein the number of times that the audience has requested the webpage is determined from information received from a proxy that receives communications in the computer network.