WWW addressing

• US 8,661,094 B2
• Filed: 12/08/2008
• Issued: 02/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Spring Ventures Ltd. (f/k/a Buy2 Networks Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Net-Express Ltd.
• Inventors: Roth, Roby, Refuah, Aviv, Dayagi, Gil
• Primary Examiner(s): BLAIR, DOUGLAS B
• Application Number:
  US12/316,050
• Publication Number:
  US 20090144288A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,905 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/14 specially adapted for billing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/28 Pre-payment schemes, e.g. "pay before"

Abstract

A method of WWW page retrieval from a web site, comprising entering information associated with the site; and directly displaying said page, using a browser, without any additional user intervention. Preferably, the information is in a non-Latin language. Alternatively or additionally, the information does not meet domain name specifications, for example, being in a free-form format.

Claims

1. A method of WWW page retrieval for enabling a user using a computer having a web browser with a browser window having a URL entry field running on the computer and a connection to the Internet to retrieve a desired webpage to the browser, comprising:

(a) enabling a translator input window to be overlaid on a portion of the browser window for allowing a user to enter an input of a non-URL-address text string therein;

(b) enabling a translator entity having software operable on a computer, which translator entity is operatively coupled to the browser and to said translator input window overlaid on the browser window for receiving information of one or more words of an input text string that is not a URL address entered by a user through the translator input window overlaid on a portion of the browser window,

(c) said translator entity being operative to determine a URL address for a web page which is most likely to be a desired webpage associated with the input text string information received from the user, based on statistical data of web pages in web search results for said information; and

(d) said translator entity being operative for sending the URL address to the web browser of the user'"'"'s computer to enable retrieval of the web page responsive to the URL address to be directly displayed on the user'"'"'s browser, without any additional user intervention beyond the entry of said input text string information.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein said translator entity performs a web search based on the information received from the user in order to generate web search results and identifies from the web search results the URL address of a web page most likely to be a desired webpage associated with the information received from the user.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein said URL address is determined based on statistical data from previous web searches conducted by the user.

4. A method according to claim 2, wherein said URL address is determined based on statistical data from comparing the popularity of web pages based on at least one of:

previous web searches conducted by a plurality of Internet users;

traffic volume of Internet users that previously visited those web pages; and

previous visits of web pages by Internet users.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the information is received by said translator entity based on entry by the user in a URL entry field of a browser.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the determination of the WWW page address by said translator entity is also based on at least one of:

determining a geographical location of the user and using the determined geographical location in selecting the WWW page address;

analyzing URL associations stored in a database that are logically associated with the user;

user-dependent information stored in a database including at least one of geographical location of the user, a customer club to which the user is associated, user profile, user age, and user browsing habits; and

correlating the received information with web pages in previous web searches conducted by the user stored in a database.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein the translator entity resides locally on the user'"'"'s computer.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein the translator entity resides remotely on the Internet with a remote server.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein the information entered by the user is one:

of a person or entity name;

a phone number;

a street address;

a product name; and

a website name.

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein the information entered by the user is a name or descriptor associated with a web page previously selected by a plurality of users in web searches based on said name or descriptor.

11. A method according to claim 1, wherein the statistical data is based on frequency of web pages the user has visited previously.

12. A method according to claim 1, wherein the statistical data is based on number of visits to web pages by users previously.

13. A method of WWW page retrieval for enabling a user using a computer having a web browser with a browser window having a URL entry field running on the computer and a connection to the Internet to retrieve a desired webpage to the browser, comprising:

(a) enabling a translator input window to be overlaid on a portion of the browser window for allowing a user to enter an input of a non-URL-address text string therein;

(b) enabling a translator entity which is operatively coupled to the browser and to said translator input window overlaid on the browser window and having functionality for receiving input text string information of one or more words that is not a URL address entered by a user through the translator input window overlaid on a portion of the browser window, wherein said translator entity receives said information from a domain name server to enable return to the user'"'"'s web browser of a URL address for a desired webpage in response to the information;

(c) said translator entity being operative to determine a URL address for a web page which is most likely to be a desired webpage associated with the input text string information received from the user, based on statistical data of web pages in web search results for said information; and

(d) said translator entity being operative for sending the URL address to the web browser of the user'"'"'s computer to enable retrieval of the web page responsive to said URL address to be directly displayed on the user'"'"'s browser, without any additional user intervention beyond the entry of said input text string information.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein said translator entity sends the determined URL address to a domain name server and the domain name server sends the web page responsive to the URL address to the user'"'"'s web browser.

15. A method according to claim 13, wherein the statistical data is based on frequency of web pages the user has visited previously.

16. A method according to claim 13, wherein the statistical data is based on number of visits to web pages by users previously.