Generating and updating recommendations for merchants

• US 9,552,600 B1
• Filed: 01/11/2013
• Issued: 01/24/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Mahfoud, Robert H., Goldberg, Anton V., Popiel, Trevor Alexander
• Primary Examiner(s): Desai, Resha
• Application Number:
  US13/739,427
• Time in Patent Office: 1,474 Days
• Field of Search: 705 261- 272
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for generating and updating recommendations for merchants. A recommendation for a merchant in an electronic marketplace is evaluated to determine whether a corresponding action for the recommendation has been completed in response to a recommendation query for the merchant. A list of recommendations that correspond to actions that have not yet been completed for the merchant is generated.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

storing, by a computing device at a data store, a plurality of advance recommendations for modifying a network page of one of a plurality of merchants in an electronic marketplace as a result of an examination of the network page, individual ones of the plurality of advance recommendations presenting an action to be performed to improve an online presence of the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace;

retrieving, by the computing device from the data store, an indication that one or more corresponding actions have been completed to improve the online presence of the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace;

determining, by the computing device, that one of the plurality of merchants has invalidated at least one of the plurality of advance recommendations from the retrieved indication;

reevaluating, by the computing device, the at least one of the plurality of advance recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants in response to a recommendation query to generate a list of valid recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants, wherein the recommendation query is received from a client computing device, wherein the plurality of advance recommendations are evaluated in advance of the computing device processing the recommendation query;

evaluating, by the computing device, validity of a plurality of runtime recommendations for modifying the network page of the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace, wherein the plurality of runtime recommendations are evaluated concurrently with processing of the recommendation query, wherein each period of evaluation for the plurality of runtime recommendations is less than a designated period of time, wherein each period of evaluation for the plurality of advance recommendations is greater than the designated period of time;

generating, by the computing device, the list of the valid recommendations that correspond to actions that have not yet been completed for the one of the plurality of merchants by excluding the one of the plurality of recommendations to which the one or more corresponding actions have been completed from the list of valid recommendations, wherein the list of valid recommendations comprise at least one valid advance recommendation and at least one runtime recommendation; and

transmitting, by the computing device over a communication network, the list of valid recommendations to the client computing device, wherein the list of valid recommendations is displayed by the client computing device and comprises at least one network link configured to enable implementation of one of the valid recommendations included in the list.

2. A method, comprising:

storing, in at least one computing device, a plurality of advance recommendations for modifying a network page of one of a plurality of merchants in an electronic marketplace as a result of an examination of the network page, wherein a recommendation indicates a corresponding action to be completed;

storing, in the at least one computing device, an indication that the corresponding action for one of the plurality of advance recommendations has been completed by the one of the plurality of merchants;

evaluating, in the at least one computing device, the one of the plurality of advance recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace and the indication to determine whether the corresponding action for the one of the plurality of advance recommendations has been completed in response to a recommendation query to generate a list of valid recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants, wherein the recommendation query is received from a client computing device, wherein the plurality of advance recommendations are evaluated in advance of the at least one computing device processing the recommendation query;

evaluating, in the at least one computing device, validity of a plurality of runtime recommendations for modifying the network page of the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace, wherein the plurality of runtime recommendations are evaluated concurrently with processing of the recommendation query to generate the list of valid recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants, wherein each period of evaluation for the plurality of runtime recommendations is less than a designated period of time, wherein each period of evaluation for the plurality of advance recommendations is greater than the designated period of time;

generating, in the at least one computing device, the list of the valid recommendations that correspond to actions that have not yet been completed for the one of the plurality of merchants by excluding the one of the plurality of advance recommendations to which the corresponding action has been completed from the list of valid recommendations, wherein the list of valid recommendations comprise at least one valid advance recommendation and at least one runtime recommendation; and

transmitting, by the at least one computing device over a communication network, the list of valid recommendations to the client computing device, wherein the list of valid recommendations is displayed by the client computing device and comprises at least one network link configured to enable implementation of one of the valid recommendations included in the list.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

obtaining, in the at least one computing device, a notification that the corresponding action has been completed by the one of the plurality of merchants; and

reevaluating, in the at least one computing device, the one of the plurality of advance recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants to determine whether one of the actions has been completed in response to another recommendation query for the one of the plurality of merchants.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the notification corresponds to a commencement of a network site modification session by the one of the plurality of merchants.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

obtaining, in the at least one computing device, a request for a network page from the one of the plurality of merchants at the client computing device;

submitting, in the at least one computing device, the recommendation query for the one of the plurality of merchants in response to obtaining the request;

generating, in the at least one computing device, the network page including the list of valid recommendations that correspond to the actions that have not yet been completed for the one of the plurality of merchants; and

sending the network page to the client computing device.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the list of the valid recommendations excludes recommendations contained in a list of excluded recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the evaluating the one of the plurality of advance recommendations step is performed at a predetermined interval according to a batch process.

8. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

obtaining, in the at least one computing device, a notification that another action has been completed by the one of the plurality of merchants; and

excluding, in the at least one computing device, another one of the plurality of advance recommendations that corresponds to the other action from the list of valid recommendations in response to the notification.

9. A system, comprising:

at least one computing device; and

a recommendation generation application executable in the at least one computing device, the recommendation generation application configured to at least;

store a plurality of advance recommendations for modifying a network page of one of a plurality of merchants in an electronic marketplace as a result of an examination of the network page, wherein a recommendation indicates a corresponding action to be completed;

store a first indication that the corresponding action for one of the plurality of advance recommendations has been completed by the one of the plurality of merchants;

evaluate for validity the one of the plurality of advance recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace by reviewing the first indication in response to a recommendation query to generate a list of valid recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants, wherein the recommendation query is received from a client computing device;

evaluate validity of a plurality of runtime recommendations for modifying the network page of the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace, wherein the plurality of runtime recommendations are evaluated concurrently with processing of the recommendation query, wherein each period of evaluation for the plurality of runtime recommendations is less than a designated period of time, wherein each period of evaluation for the plurality of advance recommendations is greater than the designated period of time;

generate the list of valid recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants by excluding the one of the plurality of advance recommendations to which the corresponding action has been completed from the list of valid recommendations, wherein the list of valid recommendations comprise at least one valid advance recommendation and at least one runtime recommendation; and

transmit over a communication network, the list of valid recommendations to the client computing device, wherein the list of valid recommendations is displayed by the client computing device and comprises at least one network link configured to enable implementation of one of the valid recommendations included in the list.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to store a second indication of which ones of the plurality of advance recommendations are valid in a data store.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to determine that the one of the plurality of merchants has invalidated the one of the plurality of advance recommendations.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein individual ones of the plurality of advance recommendations comprise a recommendation for the one of the plurality of merchants to perform at least one action to improve an online presence of the one of the plurality of merchants in the electronic marketplace, wherein the at least one action corresponds to a specific network site modification tool.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein evaluating an advance recommendation for validity comprises determining whether the corresponding at least one action has been performed using the specific network site modification tool, the advance recommendation being valid when the corresponding at least one action has yet to be performed by the specific network site modification tool.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to determine that the one of the plurality of merchants has actually invalidated the one of the plurality of advance recommendations.

15. The system of claim 9, further comprising a network site administration application executable in the at least one computing device, wherein the network site administration application is configured to at least:

obtain a request for the network page from the one of the plurality of merchants at the client computing device;

submit the recommendation query for the one of the plurality of merchants to the recommendation generation application in response to the request;

generate the network page including the list of valid recommendations; and

send the network page to the client computing device.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to send the list of valid recommendations to the one of the plurality of merchants by email.

17. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to determine which of a plurality of evaluations for the one of the plurality of advance recommendations is most recent according to a corresponding timestamp associated with individual ones of the plurality of evaluations.

18. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to evaluate for validity a different plurality of advance recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants in response to the recommendation query for the one of the plurality of merchants.

19. The system of claim 9, wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to filter the list of valid recommendations for the one of the plurality of merchants according to a list of invalid recommendations associated with the one of the plurality of merchants.

20. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a network site modification tool executable in the at least one computing device, the network site modification tool configured to at least;

send an update event to the recommendation generation application when the one of the plurality of merchants commences a network site modification session using the network site modification tool; and

wherein the recommendation generation application is further configured to designate the one of the plurality of advance recommendations as invalidated in response to obtaining the update event from the network site modification tool.