System and method for web destination profiling

• US 20080028067A1
• Filed: 07/27/2006
• Published: 01/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tomlin, John Anthony, Ravikumar, Shanmugasundaram, Tomkins, Andrew, Berkhin, Pavel
• Granted Patent: US 8,676,961 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

An improved system and method for web destination profiling for online population-targeted advertising is provided. A web destination profiler may be provided for generating web destination profiles. Traffic may be analyzed at a particular web destination in order to understand the population visiting the web destination. The analysis of user traffic, including differentiated clickstream data, may be applied for determining known characteristics of a web destination profile. Moreover, unknown characteristics of a web destination profile may be determined using a variety of techniques including inferring characteristics by modeling traffic flow through other web destinations, estimating characteristics from other web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through other web destinations, propagating characteristics to a web destination profile by smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles, and so forth. Web destination profiles may be used by applications such as an online application for population-targeted advertising.

Claims

1. A computer system for profiling a web destination, comprising:

storage for storing a web destination profile having characteristics of a population of visitors to a web destination; and

a web destination profiler operably coupled to the storage for generating the web destination profile.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising a traffic analysis engine operably coupled to the web destination profiler for analyzing traffic at the web destination.

3. The system of claim 1 further comprising a clickstream analysis engine operably coupled to the web destination profiler for analyzing clickstream data from the web destination.

4. The system of claim 1 further comprising a topology analysis engine operably coupled to the web destination profiler for analyzing topology data about the web destination.

5. The system of claim 1 further comprising a smoothing engine operably coupled to the web destination profiler for propagating characteristics to the web destination profile from other web destination profiles.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising a model generator operably coupled to the traffic analysis engine for generating a model of traffic flow among a plurality of web destinations.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising a traffic flow analysis engine for propagating population characteristics to a plurality of web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through a plurality of web destinations.

8. A computer-implemented method for profiling a web destination, comprising:

analyzing traffic at a web destination;

determining unknown characteristics of a population of visitors to the web destination for a web destination profile; and

storing the web destination profile in storage.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising determining known characteristics of the population of visitors to the web destination for the web destination profile.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein determining the unknown characteristics of the population of visitors to the web destination for the web destination profile comprises inferring at least one characteristic to the web destination profile from other web destination profiles by modeling traffic flow through other web destinations.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein determining the unknown characteristics of the population of visitors to the web destination for the web destination profile comprises estimating at least one characteristic of the web destination profile from other web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through other web destinations.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein estimating at least one characteristic of the web destination profile from other web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through other web destinations comprises determining the sum of a distance between a predicted distribution and an observed distribution and a distance between the predicted distribution and a propagated distribution determined by the traffic arriving at the web destination.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein estimating at least one characteristic of the web destination profile from other web destination profiles by predicting traffic flow through other web destinations comprises determining a maximal entropy for an entropy model of the other web destinations.

14. The method of claim 8 wherein determining the unknown characteristics of the population of visitors to the web destination for the web destination profile comprises propagating at least one characteristic to the web destination profile by smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein propagating at least one characteristic to the web destination profile by smoothing the joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles comprises smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles for web destinations visited by a user in a session.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein propagating at least one characteristic to the web destination profile by smoothing the joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles comprises smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles for web destinations selected by topical similarity of content.

17. The method of claim 14 wherein propagating at least one characteristic to the web destination profile by smoothing the joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles comprises smoothing a joint distribution of characteristics of other web destination profiles for web destinations selected by similarity of clickthrough behavior of visitors.

18. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 8.

19. A computer system for profiling a web destination, comprising:

means for analyzing content at a web destination;

means for determining characteristics of a population of visitors to the web destination to generate a web destination profile; and

means for generating the web destination profile.

20. The computer system of claim 19 further comprising:

means for determining unknown characteristics of the population of visitors to the web destination for the web destination profile.