HK1160269A - Method and system for generating a search result list in response to a search request - Google Patents

Description

Method and system for generating search result list in response to search request

This application is a divisional application of the inventive patent application having international application date of 26/5/2000, international application number of PCT/US00/14753, national application number of 00810945.1, entitled "system and method for influencing position in search result list generated by computer network search engine".

Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to a method and system for generating search result listings in response to a search request by a searcher using a computer network.

Background

The transmission of information over computer networks has become an increasingly important way by which organizations, companies, and individuals work. Computer networks have evolved over the past few years from separate, isolated entities built to meet the needs of a small group of people into vast interconnected networks, interconnecting different physical networks, making them a collaborative system. Currently, the largest computer network is the internet. The internet is a worldwide network of interconnected computers that communicate using common protocols. Millions of computers, from low-end personal computers to high-end supercomputers, are connected to the internet.

The internet has a large number of users worldwide who often exchange large amounts of information over electrical connections. The internet continues to provide services for its original purpose, allowing people to access and exchange information between government agencies, laboratories, and universities conducting research and education. In addition, the internet has evolved to provide services beyond its original purpose. In particular, the internet is rapidly transforming into a global electronic market for goods and services, as well as ideas and information.

The internet has transformed into a global market primarily because of the introduction of information systems called the world wide web. The world wide web is a unique distributed database designed to access large volumes of literature. The database records of the world wide web are documents called "web pages". These web pages reside on web servers and can be accessed over the internet. The world wide web is therefore a vast database of information distributed over a myriad of computer systems that are in constant change without definite shapes. Computers connected to the internet can access web pages through a program called a browser, which has a powerful graphical user interface that is easy to learn and use. One powerful technology supported by web browsers is called hyperlinks, which enable web page authors to create links to other web pages, which the user can then retrieve by simple click commands on the browser.

These web pages may take any of a number of formats, such as hypertext markup language (HTML), and may also include multimedia information content, such as graphics, audio, and moving images. Anyone with a computer connected to the internet can access web pages published on the world wide web. Thus, access to the world wide web can attract attention. In addition, as the design of web pages has become more complex, due to the faster and faster data transfer rates and computer processing speeds, the web has become more suitable for advertising and other commercial uses, as well as for the free dissemination of information.

The advent of powerful new tools for facilitating the development and dissemination of internet content has resulted in a rapid increase in the information, products and services provided on the internet, as well as a dramatic increase in the number of uses for the internet. International data companies, commonly called IDC, predict that the number of internet users will grow from about ninety-seven million in 1998 to about three hundred million and twenty million in the end of 2002. In addition, transactions conducted over the internet have grown and continue to grow dramatically. International data companies predict that the percentage of internet users purchasing goods and services on the internet will increase from about 28 percent in the end of 1998 to about 40 percent in 2002, during which the total value of goods and services purchased on the internet will increase from about $ 32.4 billion to about $ 425.7 billion.

The internet is a new medium for providing information advertisements, products and services. However, the world wide web includes countless-looking web pages that are distributed without order among millions of computer systems around the world. Mechanisms such as directories and search engines have been developed to search for information available on the world wide web to help internet users find information of interest. These search services enable web sites on the internet to be searched on the basis of specific topics, products or services of interest.

After email, search services are the most frequently used tools on the internet. As a result, websites offering search services provide advertisers with a good tool to get close to Internet listeners and enable advertisers to garner the interests of users based on keywords or typical search requests.

In a web-based search using an internet search engine, a user enters a search term comprising one or more keywords, which the search engine then uses to generate in real time a list of web pages that the user can access through hyperlinks. However, prior art search engines and web site directories rely on keywords to assign results, which often produce irrelevant search results. The automated search techniques that drive many search engines in the prior art rely heavily on mathematically based complex database search algorithms that select and prioritize web pages based on multiple criteria, such as keyword density, keyword location, etc. Search results generated with this mechanism often rely on blind mathematical formulas, which may be random or even irrelevant. In addition, search engines that utilize automated search techniques to catalog search results typically rely on invisible web page descriptions, i.e., "tags" that are created by web site promoters. Website owners are free to tag their websites. Thus, some web site promoters insert common search terms that are irrelevant to their web site build tags because they can draw more attention without incurring much expense in doing so. Finally, many web sites have similar built-in tags and prior art search engines are unable to prioritize results as desired.

Search engines and web site directories rely on the manual effort of limited editors to review web page information at the same time. Since it is almost impossible to fully manually review and catalog such unpredictable randomly updated databases of the network, the results of search engines are often incomplete or outdated. In addition, as the volume and density of internet content continues to increase, in many well-known web search sites, users must frequently click on many branches of the hierarchical directory and find the web site corresponding to the search request, a process that is slow and clumsy from the user's perspective. Thus, prior art search engines are inefficient in that web page owners attempt to present their web pages to interested users.

In addition, the paradigm of generating web pages, such as banner advertisements, follows conventional advertising rules and does not take full advantage of the characteristics of the internet. In the banner advertisement model, web site sponsors who attempt to increase the popularity of a web site often purchase the web page space of commercial web sites. Web site sponsors often paint this space with colored graphics, called banners, that advertise their own web sites. The banner may act as a hyperlink that the visitor may click on to access the web site. Like conventional advertising, banner advertising on the internet is charged for impressions. The banner may be displayed on each web page. However, impression-based advertising does not fully exploit the market potential of the Internet because click-through rates, which generate a very low rate of user access to a destination web site, are very low. Web site sponsors pay fees and users are not interested in these products and services because most web site visitors find specific information and are not interested in the information in the banner. Likewise, banners are often not visible to interested parties, because banners are often not searchable by search engines, and interested parties do not know where on a web site to view banner advertisements.

Thus, the traditional approach of advertising and search engines has not been able to efficiently deliver relevant information to interested parties via the world wide web at a low cost. Internet advertising has a purpose, interactivity, and scalability not normally available with other media. With these appropriate tools, internet advertisers are able to target their messages to specific groups of users and receive rapid feedback.

Ideally, web site sponsors should be able to control their position in the search result list, thereby making them occupy a prominent position in the search results. The search engine functionality of the internet needs to target new directions to provide users with quick, simple, and topical search results while allowing internet advertisers and sponsors to find users at a lower cost. Users utilizing search engines are able to find companies that provide the products, services or information they are looking for. In such an online marketplace, companies selling products, services, or information compete in an open auction environment for placement in search result lists generated by internet search engines. Because advertisers must pay for search result listings generated by clicking on a search engine, advertisers select those search keywords that are most relevant to the content of their web site. The further forward an advertiser is positioned in a search result list, the more likely it is to be clicked; that is, the greater the likelihood of being directed to the advertiser's web site through the search result list. This can be further achieved by publicly displaying the prices that advertisers bid on a particular search result list.

Disclosure of Invention

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for enabling a sponsor to influence the placement in a search result list generated by an internet search engine for a particular search term.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a system and method for allowing sponsors to assign keyword search terms to search engines to position their search result listings in locations closest to their business.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a system and method for sponsors to check their current search terms and location in an online manner and to make timely changes to their selected search terms, location, web site title and description.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a search engine for sponsors that enables the sponsors to influence position in search result lists through a continuous, competitive, online bidding process.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a cost effective method for internet advertising wherein web site promoters are charged proportionally to the actual number of visits due to a search engine.

It is a further object of this invention to create a new advertising system in which advertisers seek out consumers of greatest interest by participating in the free market, which relates search listings in search results generated using advertiser-selected search terms to price.

It is a further object of the present invention to create an open market for the internet advertising industry that is fair to both consumers and advertisers in which the advertiser-placed listings in the search result list are clearly indicated as paid advertisements.

It is yet another object of the present invention to enable web site promoters to control the title and description associated with a promoter's terms in search result lists generated by search engines.

Brief description of the invention

The present invention seeks to provide a system and method for a web site sponsor to address the above problems by leveraging computer networks to influence the position in search results generated by an internet search engine. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for a web site promoter to define a search listing for a search result list, select a search term associated with the promoter's web site, and search an internet search engine for the search result list location of the search listing. When an internet user enters a search term in a search engine query, the search engine will generate a search result list in which the list of web site sponsors is at a location affected by one or more parameters defined by the sponsor.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a web site promoter selects a search term and influences the position in a search result list generated by the search term by engaging in an online competitive bidding process. This on-line competitive bidding process is called a "buying performance" process and may be used with internet search engines. "Purchase capability" uses marketing principles for advertising on the Internet. Conventional internet search engines do not provide a way for web site promoters to easily predict their web site locations in search results, nor do they guarantee the appearance in search results that include their web site descriptions. Enabling advertisers to target website search terms relevant to their business and describe pinpointing tools for their websites in search results can strongly promote business and other things to increase their awareness. In addition, the competitive bidding process and pricing process performed on the basis of the generation of multiple websites can ensure that the pricing structure reflects the market and can be accessible to advertisers of all budget sizes.

To participate in this process, an advertiser, such as a web site sponsor, may access the advertiser's user account through a secure web site. The advertiser can bid on search terms associated with the advertiser's web site using this account number. Each bid is for a search term-web site combination and each time the searcher clicks on the advertiser's hyperlink listing in the search result list generated by the search engine, the advertiser must pay the owner of the search engine an amount. Clicking on the searcher will result in an access request being sent to the advertiser's web site, which will respond by sending the advertiser's web page to the searcher's browser. The advertiser is then billed on a location basis in proportion to the received benefit, since the fee to be paid is based on the number of referrals made by the search engine to the advertiser's web site.

The higher the bid amount, the more advantageous it is to locate in the resulting search result list when a search term is entered by a searcher using a search engine. The search result list is arranged in descending order of bid amount, and the search listing corresponds to the highest bid amount displayed first by the searcher. Preferably, each search listing corresponding to an offer is treated as a paid listing on the display. The quote is preferably included in this description. In addition, the search result list of the present invention is preferably combined with a "free" web site description generated by a conventional Internet search engine, and preferably includes the list generated according to the math-based database search method discussed above. The combination of paid and free listings can help ensure that the searcher receives the most complete and relevant search results. Free lists are considered as offers being zero, so they are behind the paid result.

In accordance with a first embodiment of the present invention, a system and method are provided for a web site sponsor to influence the location of search listings in a search result list generated by an internet search engine. A web site sponsor first selects a search term that includes one or more keywords that are relevant to the web site content to be listed. Web site sponsors influence the position in the search listing through an ongoing competitive bidding process with other web site sponsors. The bidding process occurs when an advertiser enters a new bid for an existing search listing or enters a bid for a new search listing. It is preferable to process the sponsor's offers in real time. The bid amount is compared to all other bid amounts of other sponsors for the same search term and a new priority value is generated for all search listings having this search term. The priority value determines where in the search results listing page the sponsor's web site description will appear when the search term is entered by the searcher into the search engine's query box. The higher the bid amount, the higher the priority value, and the better the position, which is preferably near the beginning of the search results list page. The amount used in the competitive bidding process is preferably as much money as the web site sponsor pays the internet search engine owner each time the search engine references an advertiser's web site. Each time the search engine references a sponsor's web site, this amount is subtracted from the account balance, which is stored in the sponsor's account number.

One embodiment of the system and method of the present invention can provide a database with web site sponsor accounts. Each account number includes contact and billing information for the web site sponsor. In addition, each account includes at least a search listing, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a website, a search term including one or more keywords, a bid amount, and a title of the search listing. Each account may also include sponsor payment history information and user entered search listing history information. The sponsor logs in to his or her account through an authentication process running on the secure server. Once logged in, the sponsor may add, delete or modify search listings. The functions of adding or deleting search listings, or modifying search listing bids are to initiate the competing bid process described above. All search listings change and are subsequently modified in real-time to support the online competitive bidding process.

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising: maintaining a database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term; receiving a search request from a searcher; identifying a search listing associated with a search term that matches the search request; and arranging the identified search listings in the search result list according to the values of their respective bids, including search listings whose bids are 0, if any.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising: means for maintaining a database, said database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term; means for receiving a search request from a searcher; means for identifying a search listing associated with a search term matching the search request; and means for arranging the identified search listings in the search result list according to the value of their respective bid amount, including search listings whose bid amount is 0, if any.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising: maintaining a database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term; receiving a search request from a searcher; identifying a search listing associated with a search term having a normalized form that matches a normalized search term in a retrieval request; and providing a search result list including the identified search listing.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising: means for maintaining a database, said database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term; means for receiving a search request from a searcher; means for identifying a search listing associated with a search term having a normalized form that matches a normalized search term in a retrieval request; and means for providing a search result list including the identified search listing.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the relationship between a large network and one embodiment of the system and method for generating paid search results of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a menu, display screen and input screen for one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating the advertiser user's login process in one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for managing a user's login in one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates account record data used in one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method for adding money to an account record in one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example search result list generated by an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating a change quotation process used in one embodiment of the present invention; and

fig. 9 illustrates an example of a screen display used in the process of changing the offer shown in fig. 8.

Detailed Description

Methods and systems are disclosed for generating a paid search result determined by a sponsor of a web site, such as an advertiser, over a client/server based computer network system. The following description is presented to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the invention. For purposes of explanation, specific nomenclature is used to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. The specific application descriptions provided are examples only. Various modifications to the preferred embodiment will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles described herein may be applied to other embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein, which are presented to illustrate the principles and features of the invention.

Referring now to the drawings, FIG. 1 is an example of a distributed system 10 as a client/server system architecture for use in a preferred embodiment of the present invention. A "client" is one of a group of members that uses another group of services to which it does not belong. In a computer network, such as the internet, a client is a process (i.e., a program or a task) that requests another process, called a server program, to provide services. The client program uses the requested service without needing to know the working details of the other server program, i.e. the server itself. In a network system, client processes are typically run on computers that access shared network resources provided by another computer running a corresponding server process. It should be noted, however, that the client process and server process could also run on the same computer.

A "server" is typically a remote computer system accessible over a communications medium such as the Internet. The client process is capable of activity on a second computer system and communicates with the server process over a communications medium, allowing multiple clients to take full advantage of the information gathering capabilities of the server. Thus, a server is essentially a provider of information for a computer network.

Thus, the block diagram shown in FIG. 1 illustrates a distributed system 10 that includes a plurality of client computers 12, a plurality of advertiser web servers 14, an account management server 22, and a search engine web server 24, all connected to a network 20. The network 20 will be hereinafter referred to collectively as the internet. While the system and method of the present invention is particularly useful in the Internet, it should be understood that the client computer 12, advertiser web server 14, account management server 22 and search engine web server 24 may be interconnected by one of a number of different types of networks. These networks may include Local Area Networks (LANs), other Wide Area Networks (WANs), and regional networks accessible over telephone lines, such as commercial information services. The client and server processes may even include different programs executing simultaneously on the same computer.

The client computer 12 may be a conventional Personal Computer (PC), a workstation, or any other scale computer system. Each client 12 typically includes one or more processors, memory, input/output devices, and a network interface, such as a conventional modem. The advertiser website server 14, account management server 22, and search engine web server 24 may have the same structure. However, the advertiser web server 14, account management server 22, and search engine web server 24 may all include a number of computers connected by another private network. In fact, network 20 may include hundreds or thousands of computer networks.

Client computer 12 may execute a web browser program 16, such as a NAVIGATOR, EXPLORER, or MOSAIC browser program, looking for web pages or records 30 stored on advertiser server 14. The browser program 16 enables the user to input the address of a certain web page 30 to be extracted. These addresses are called uniform resource locators, i.e., URLs. In addition, once a web page is extracted, the browser program 16 can be used to access other web pages or records when the user "clicks" on hyperlinks to other web pages or the like. These hyperlinks are located in the web pages 30 and provide an automated way for the user to enter the URL of another web page and retrieve that web page. These web pages may be data records, including plain text information, or more complex digitally encoded multimedia content, such as software programs, graphics, audio signals, video signals, and the like.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, shown in FIG. 1, client computers 12 communicate with various network information providers, including account management server 22, search engine server 24 and advertiser servers 14, over network 20 using the functionality provided by the Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), although other communication protocols, such as FTP, SNMP, TELNET and several others known in the art, may be used. Preferably, the search engine server 24, account management server 22, and advertiser servers 14 are all on the world wide web.

As noted above, at least two servers are contemplated in a preferred embodiment of the present invention. The first type of server is the account management server 22, which includes a computer storage medium 32 and a processing system 34. The database 38 is stored on the storage medium 32 of the account management server 22. The database 38 includes advertiser account information. As will be appreciated from the following description, the systems and methods of the present invention may be implemented in software that is stored as executable instructions on a storage medium, such as a memory or mass storage device, on the account management server 22. A conventional browser program 16 running on the client computer 12 may be used to access the advertiser account information stored on the account management server 22. Preferably, access to the account management server 22 is through a firewall, not shown, which protects the account management and search result locating program and account information from external tampering. Security may be further enhanced by enhancing standard communication protocols, such as secure hypertext transfer protocol or secure sockets layer.

The second type of server is a search engine web server 24. The search engine program enables network users to type keywords into pages of interest in millions of pages within the web when navigating to search engine web server URLs or web sites on other web servers that can submit query requests to the search engine web server 24 through their browser program 16. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the search engine web server 24 generates a search result list that includes, at least in part, the relevant entries from the bidding process conducted by the account management server 22. The search engine web server 24 generates a series of hyperlinks to documents that include information related to the search terms entered by the user at the client computer 12. The search engine web server sends this list in the form of a web page to the web user for display on a browser 16 running on the client computer 12. A preferred embodiment of the search engine web server can be found by browsing the web page of the URL http:// www. In addition, the search result list page, an example of which is given in FIG. 7, will be discussed in further detail below.

The search engine web server 24 is connected to the internet 20. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the search engine web server 24 includes a search database 40 in which search listing records are located for generating search results in response to user query requests. In addition, the search engine web server 24 may also be connected to the account management server 22. The account management server 22 may also be connected to the internet. The search engine web server 24 and website management server 22 of the present invention are capable of satisfying the diverse information needs of users at the client computers 12.

For example, group 1 user at client computer 12 may be a network information provider, such as an advertising web site sponsor or owner, who has advertiser web pages 30 on advertiser web server 14. These advertising web site sponsors, i.e., advertisers, may wish to access account information in memory 32 on account management server 22. The advertising web site sponsor may participate in the competitive bidding process with other advertisers through account information on the account management server 22. Advertisers can bid on any number of search terms that are relevant to the content of the advertiser's web site. In one embodiment of the present invention, the relationship between the bid-upon search term and the advertiser's web site is determined through a manual editing process prior to insertion of the search listing, including the search term and advertiser's web site, into the database 40. In another embodiment of the present invention, the association between the bidded search term in the search listing and the corresponding web site is evaluated using a computer program executing on the processor 34 of the account management server 22, wherein the computer program will evaluate the search term and the corresponding web site according to a set of predetermined editorial rules.

The higher the bid amount, the more forward the search results list page generated by the search engine 24 is when searching with the search term bid on by the advertiser. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the advertiser's bid includes the amount of money that is deducted from the advertiser's account each time the web site is accessed via a hyperlink in the search result list page. The searcher initiates the extraction request by "clicking" on the hyperlink with an input device to extract information related to the advertiser's hyperlink. Preferably, each access or "click" on the search result list hyperlink redirects the search engine web server 24, which associates the "click" with the advertiser's account identifier. This redirection, which is opaque to the searcher, encodes access to account identification information encoded into the search result page before the searcher clicks on the resulting search result list hyperlink to access the advertiser's URL. The account identification information is recorded in the advertiser's account together with the extraction request information as an extraction request event. Because the information obtained by this mechanism compares the account identifier to a URL in a manner that conventional server system records known in the art cannot do, an accurate account debit record is obtained. Preferably, the advertiser's web site description and hyperlink on the search result list page has an explanation that the advertiser's listing is a paid listing. It is preferable that each paid listing display a "cost paid by the advertiser" which corresponds to a "price per click" paid by the advertiser each time the advertiser accesses the advertiser's web site through the search result list.

A second category of users at client computers 12 may include searchers seeking information on the network. The searcher may access a search engine web page 36 on the web server 24 through the browser 16. The search engine web page 36 includes a query box into which a searcher may enter a search term that includes one or more keywords. The searcher may also query the search engine web server 24 by placing a query box on a web page stored on a remote web server, having a hyperlink to the search engine web server 24. After the searcher enters the search term, the searcher may send the query information to the search engine web server 24 by clicking on the hyperlink. The search engine web server 24 then generates a search results list page and sends this page to the searcher at the client computer 12.

The searcher may click on hyperlinks on the search results page associated with each listing to access the corresponding web pages. The hyperlink may access the web page anywhere on the Internet, including paid listings of advertiser web pages 18 on the advertiser web server 14. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the search result list also includes a free list, which is not the result of advertiser bids, but is generated using a conventional web search engine, such as the INKTOMI, LYCOS, or YAHOO! A search engine. The free hyperlinks may also include links manually edited into the database 40 by an edit group. It is preferable to have a free web page behind a paid advertisement main page on the search result page.

Fig. 2 illustrates menus, display screens and input screens provided to the advertiser to allow it to access the account management server 22 via the conventional browser program 16. When the URL of the account management server 22 is entered into the browser program 16 of FIG. 1, the advertiser activates a login application running on the processing system 34 of the server 22, as will be discussed below in screen 110 of FIG. 2. Once the advertiser logs in, the processing system 34 provides a menu 120 having a plurality of options and services to be provided to the advertiser. These items, discussed in more detail below, activate a subroutine to satisfy the advertiser's request or query for more information before satisfying the advertiser's request. In one embodiment of the invention, the advertiser may access several options through menu 120, including requesting customer service 130, viewing advertiser policies 140, conducting account management 150, adding money to the advertiser's account 160, managing account advertisements on a search engine, and viewing campaign reports 180. Context-specific help 190 may also be provided at menu 120 and the above options.

The login procedure of the preferred embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in fig. 3 and 4 for two types of users. FIG. 3 illustrates the advertiser's login procedure 270. Fig. 4 illustrates a login procedure 290 for an administrator administration and maintenance system. As described above, the advertiser or administrator at the client computer 12 must first access the account management server using a browser program in steps 271 or 291. When the advertiser arrives at the URL of the login page to begin the login process in either step 272 or 292, the processing system 34 of the account management server 22 activates a login application in either step 272 or 292. In accordance with this application, the processor provides an input screen 110 (FIG. 2) requesting a username and password for the advertiser or administrator. This information is provided in step 276 or 296 to a security application known in the art for authenticating based on account information stored in a database in the memory 32 of the account management server 22.

As can be seen in fig. 3, when the user is authenticated as an advertiser, the advertiser is provided with the menu screen 120 shown in fig. 2 and has limited read/write access to the corresponding advertiser account, step 278. The advertiser's login event 278 in step 280 may also be recorded as an advertiser's account record in a database in the form of an audit trail data structure. The audit trail record is preferably provided as a series of entries in the database 38, each entry corresponding to an event at which the advertiser's record is accessed. The audit trail information in the account record is preferably available for viewing by the account owner and other appropriate managers.

If, however, the user is found to be an administrator by authentication in step 295 of fig. 4, then the administrator is provided with special administrative access to all advertiser accounts in step 296. The administrator login event 296 is recorded in the administrator's account record in the form of an audit trail data structure at step 297. The audit trail record is preferably provided as a series of entries in the database 38, each entry corresponding to an event in which the administrator's account record is accessed. The administrator's audit trail information is preferably viewable by the account owner and other appropriate administrators.

In addition, unlike the general advertiser main menu displayed to the authenticated advertiser user in step 282, the authenticated administrator has access to view the database 38 of advertiser accounts in step 298. Preferably, the administrator is provided with a database search interface that enables the administrator to select an advertiser account to monitor. For example, this interface may include a query box, and the administrator may enter an account number, a username or contact name corresponding to the account number he wishes to access. When the administrator selects an advertiser account to monitor in step 299, the administrator is provided with the advertiser main page 120 shown in FIG. 2, which the advertiser can also see.

Access to the account information 32 on the account management server 22 is limited to users who have account records in the system, and who must provide a valid login name and password. The login name and password information is stored in the database 38 of the account management server 22 along with the user's other account information, as shown in FIG. 1. Account information, including a login name and password, is entered into the database 38 shown in fig. 1 through an online registration process.

FIG. 5 illustrates the type of information included in each advertiser account record 300 in the database. First, as described above, the advertiser account record 300 includes a username 302 and a password 304 for online authentication. The account record also includes contact information 310 (e.g., contact name, company name, street name, phone number, email address).

Contact information 310 is preferably used to directly contact the advertiser when the advertiser requests significant advertiser event notifications, as will be discussed in more detail below. The account number record 300 also includes billing information 320 (e.g., balance, credit card information). Billing information 320 includes data that is accessed when the advertiser chooses to add money to the advertiser's account. In addition, specific billing information such as balance may trigger events to get notified under notification selection. The audit trail portion 325 of the account record 300 includes a list of all events that access the account record 300. Each time an administrator or advertiser accesses or modifies an account record 300, a short record describing the account access and/or modification event is added to the audit trail section 330 of the administrator or advertiser account. The audit trail information may then be used to help generate a transaction history for the account holder.

The advertising information section 330 includes some of the information required to perform the online bidding process in the present invention, where a location is determined for the website description and a hyperlink is generated in the search result list by the search engine. The advertisement data 330 for each user account 300 may be organized without or with more sub-accounts 340. Each sub-account 340 includes at least one search listing 344. Each search listing corresponds to a bid for a search term. Advertisers can manage bids for multiple search terms or for multiple websites using the sub-account number. The sub-account number is also particularly useful for advertisers to track performance of targeted market segments. The sub-account superstructure is used to help advertisers organize their advertising transactions without affecting the method of the present invention. The advertisement information part may not include a management layer of the added sub-account, but may include only one or more search listings.

The search listing 344 corresponds to a search term/bid pair that includes important information for conducting an online competitive bid. Preferably, each search listing includes the following information: search term 352, web site description 354, URL 356, offer 358, and title 360. The search term 352 includes one or more keywords, which may be ordinary English words (or any other language). Each keyword in turn comprises a string. Search terms are the target of competing online bidding processes. Advertisers select a search term to bid on in relation to the content of the advertiser's web site. Ideally, an advertiser would select a search term that the searcher would most likely enter in seeking information on the advertiser's web site, although a general search term could be selected to ensure comprehensive coverage of related search terms.

The web site description 354 is a short textual description of the content of the advertiser's web site (preferably less than 190 characters) that may be displayed as an advertiser's entry in a search result list. The search listing 344 may also include a title 360 of the web site that may be displayed as a hyperlink title for advertiser entries in the search result list. URL 356 includes the uniform resource locator address of the advertiser's web site. The URL is provided to the browser program when the user clicks on a hyperlink in an advertiser search result list entry. The browser program then accesses the advertiser's web site through the redirection mechanism discussed above. The URL may also be displayed as part of an advertiser entry in the search result list.

The bid 358 is preferably the amount of money the advertiser has given for the listing. These dollars are subtracted from, or recorded on, the advertiser's account number, each time the user searches with the corresponding search term and the search result list hyperlink is used to direct the searcher to the advertiser's website. Finally, the priority is a dynamically generated value, preferably generated by the processing system 34 of the account management server 22 of FIG. 1 each time an advertiser bids or a searcher enters a search query. The priority values in the advertiser search listing determine the location of the advertiser's entry in the search result list generated when searching for the corresponding search term. The priority value is preferably an order value directly related to the bid 358, with higher bids, higher priorities, and higher positions in the search result list. Preferably, priority 1 is assigned to the highest bid and consecutive order values are assigned to subsequent priorities.

After logging in, the advertiser may follow the menu shown in FIG. 2 to perform a number of operations, including viewing rules and advertiser policies, requesting customer service assistance. These items cause a subroutine to be activated to satisfy these requests. For example, when "customer service" is selected, an input screen 130 is displayed for the advertiser to select the type of customer service. In addition, a form may be provided on screen 130 to enable advertisers to enter customer opinions into the form.

When "view advertiser policy" is selected, a subroutine is activated by the processing system 34 of the account management server 22 shown in FIG. 1. As shown in fig. 2, this sub-program displays an informational web page 140. This web page 140 displays the advertiser policy currently in effect (e.g., "all search listing descriptions must be explicitly associated with the search term").

The menu 120 shown in FIG. 2 also includes an "Account management" selection 150 that allows the advertiser to view and change the advertiser's contact and billing information, or to update the advertiser's access profile, if any. A table similar to that discussed above is used to update account information in the prior art based on a network.

The "Account management" menu also includes a selection that enables the advertiser to view transaction history information for the advertiser's account. Under the "View transaction History information" selection, the advertiser may activate a subroutine to view a list of past account transactions (e.g., add money to the account, add or delete bidded search terms, or change bids). Additional subroutines may be executed to cause the advertiser to display a particular type of transaction history information, or transactions that occur within a specified time. As described above, such transaction information may be obtained from the audit trail list 325 shown in FIG. 5. Clickable buttons, web forms, and/or menu-type advertisers, which may be implemented in software, can give these restrictions.

In addition, the "Account management" menu 150 shown in FIG. 2 also includes a selection that enables the advertiser to set notification options. In this option, the advertiser may choose to have the system tell the advertiser when a particular milestone occurs. For example, the advertiser may choose to have the system send an email message to the advertiser when the account balance has been reduced to a specified degree. In this manner, the advertiser receives an "alert" to update the account before the account is hung up (i.e., the advertiser's listing does not appear on the search result list). Another key event that an advertiser may wish to be notified of is when the advertiser's listing changes location within a search result list generated for a particular search term. For example, an advertiser may wish to send an e-mail message to the advertiser when another advertiser has provided a higher bid for a search term (i.e., the advertiser's listing appears later in the search results list page). When a significant event occurs, a search is performed on the database to examine each search listing that is affected. The system then executes the appropriate notification subroutine in the manner described by the advertiser's account.

Returning to FIG. 2, there is also an option in menu 120 for the advertiser to add money to the advertiser's account so that the advertiser has enough money to pay for access to the advertiser's web site through the search results page. Preferably, only paid listings of advertisers funded in the account are included in the generated search result list. Preferably, advertisers meeting selected business criteria can choose not to keep a positive account balance at all times, but can pay a fee regardless of the balance, and often a fee, reflecting the fee to be paid for accessing the advertiser's web site through the search engine generated listings. The process performed when the "add money to account" selection is activated is illustrated in FIG. 6, which begins at step 602. When the "Add money to Account" selection is clicked in step 604, a function is activated that receives data indicating the identity of the advertiser and retrieves account information for the advertiser from the database. This implementation then stores the advertiser's default billing information and stores the advertiser's default billing information in step 606. The displayed billing information includes default amounts of money to be added, default payment types, and default instrument information.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the advertiser may add funds in real time on-line via a credit card, although other payment methods are possible. For example, in another embodiment of the present invention, advertisers may transfer the required amount of funds from the advertiser's bank account to their account via an electronic currency confirmation mechanism, such as a credit card, which is well known in the art, in a manner similar to Gifford's U.S. patent No. 5724424. In another embodiment of the invention, advertisers may fund their accounts with paper checks. In this case, the funds may be updated in the account record database by manual entry. The instrument information includes detailed information about a payment means. For example, for a credit card, the instrument information may include the credit card name ((e.g., mastercard, visa, and us Express credit cards), the credit card number, the expiration date of the credit card, and billing information (e.g., billing name and address) for this credit card.

The default values displayed to the advertiser are obtained from the persistent state stored in the account database. In one embodiment of the invention, the stored billing information values may include the value (e.g., most recent) set by the advertiser the last time money was added. Default billing information is displayed to the advertiser in the form of a network table. The advertiser can click on the appropriate text entry box on the web form to change the default billing information. After the advertiser completes the change, the advertiser may click on the hyperlink "submit" button on the form at step 608, requesting the system to update billing information and balance information. When the advertiser requests an update, the system activates a function that validates the billing information provided by the advertiser and displays a confirmation to the advertiser, as shown in step 610. The confirmed billing information is displayed in the form of a read-only form, which cannot be changed by the advertiser.

The validation procedure works as follows. If the payment is to be transferred from an external account number of the advertiser, the payment may be authenticated, authorized and completed using the system disclosed in U.S. patent 5724424 to Gifford. If, however, the payment is made via a credit card, the system activates a validation algorithm to validate the credit card number using the method set forth in U.S. patent No. 5836241 to Stein et al. The validation algorithm also validates the expiration date by comparison to the current system time. In addition, this feature also stores the new value in a temporary location before verification by the advertiser.

Once the advertiser has verified that the displayed data is correct, the advertiser may click on a "confirm" button on the web page at step 612 to indicate that the account should be updated. In step 612, the system activates a function to add money to the account number, update the advertiser's billing information, and supplement the billing information with the advertiser's payment history information. Updated advertiser billing information is stored from the temporary location into a persistent state (e.g., an account record database).

In the functions activated in step 612, the system may activate the credit card payment function in step 614. In another embodiment of the present invention, multiple payment methods may be defined according to the updated payment type value to activate the credit card payment method, the other payment function.

If the payment method is credit card, the transfer is immediate at step 616 and the user's credit card has been verified at step 610. A screen is displayed illustrating the status of the money-up transaction, illustrating the transaction number and new balance status, illustrating the case of the just completed money-up through credit card transactions.

In another embodiment of the invention, after the money is added to the account number, the added money may be assigned to the sub-account at the end of the process of adding money in step 616. If the advertiser does not have any sub-accounts, all of the money in the account is distributed to the account. However, if the advertiser has more than one sub-account, the system displays a confirmation and default message that alerts the advertiser to "allocate money to the sub-account".

The menu selection "assign money to sub-account" may be activated when money is added to the advertiser's account after step 616 shown in FIG. 6, or it may be activated in the "Account management" menu 170 shown in FIG. 2. The "Account management" menu 170 is accessible from the advertiser Home Page 120 shown in FIG. 2. The "assign money to sub-account" menu selection enables the advertiser to assign money that is not assigned to a sub-account. The system will then update the account balance information. The current balance allocation is performed in real time, while allocations for balances that are not allocated are stored in a persistent state. Having completed the allocation, a sub-routine will be activated to update the sub-account balance to reflect the allocation. At this point an automatic notification will be sent to the advertiser if requested to do so. Intuitive online account management and distribution enables advertisers to manage their online advertising budgets quickly and efficiently. Advertisers can replenish their accounts with funds and allocate their budgets, all in a networked manner. The computer-based approach eliminates the time-consuming, costly manual entry of advertiser account transactions.

The point of execution referred to above executes the "allocate money to sub-account" sub-routine when the advertiser selects the money to be allocated by activating the appropriate menu. When an advertiser is to be assigned, the system activates a function, determines whether funds are not assigned to the advertiser's sub-account in the current balance (i.e., account funds that are not activated), and displays a balance selection option. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, an account instance is created and the current balance account field that is not allocated is set from the persistent state.

If no funds are allocated, the system may display the currently available balance as a whole, in addition to the balance for each sub-account. The advertiser then assigns the current balance available to the sub-account and submits a request to update this balance information. Activating a function to calculate and display the cumulative balance of the sub-account. The current cumulative balance is stored in a temporary variable that is set equal to the sum of the current balances of all the subaccounts of the advertiser. This function also confirms that a new subaccount balance is available to ensure that the total does not exceed the approved amount. If the new available sub-account balance set by the advertiser does not exceed an approved amount, a function is activated to update all sub-account balances in the persistent state and display the update in a read-only format.

If there are unallocated funds in the current account balance, the unallocated funds must be allocated. Funds not allocated at the time these funds are received are added to the current balance available. This feature must therefore alert the advertiser to the option of allocating funds that are not allocated or allocating funds that are available. The allocation of funds for non-allocations works in substantially the same manner as the allocation described above may achieve funds for the selection. After the advertiser chooses to allocate unallocated funds, a sub-routine is activated to display the currently unallocated balance for this account and these sub-accounts. The advertiser assigns the unassigned subaccount balance to the campaign and submits a request to update the balance. A function is activated that calculates and displays the current running total of unassigned subaccount balances. This function also validates new unassigned sub-account assignments to ensure that the assignments do not exceed an approved amount. The sum of the current running total of no allocations is set to the sum of the current unallocated balances of all the sub-accounts of this advertiser. If the user sets a new unassigned subaccount balance or the sum of the subaccount balances does not exceed an approved amount, this function updates all subaccounts, such as the advertiser's account in the database, and displays the update in a read-only manner.

As shown in FIG. 2, a subroutine may be activated from the advertiser's main menu 120 to display an account management menu 170. In addition to the "assign money to sub-account" selection described above, the remaining selections all utilize the search listings in the database's advertiser accounts to some extent, which also affects the advertiser's entries in the search result list. Thus, a search result list generated by a search engine needs to be described in more detail.

When a remote searcher accesses a search query web page on the search engine web server 24 and executes a search request in accordance with the procedure described above, the search engine web server 24 preferably generates and displays a search result list in which the "normalized" input in the search term field of each search listing in the search result list is identical to the normalized search term query information input by the remote searcher. Normalization of search terms for queries and search listings eliminates common non-normative, such as capitalization and pluralization, of search terms entered by searchers and web site promoters to produce relevant results. However, other schemes for determining the differences between the search term fields of the search listing and the search term query information entered by the remote searcher are also within the scope of the present invention. For example, a string matching algorithm, well known in the art, may be used to perform the matching, wherein the search listing search terms and the keywords of the search term query have the same origin, but are not identical (e.g., computer and computer). A database of synonym dictionaries may also be stored in the search engine web server 24 so that search terms having the same meaning can be compared. Localized methods may also be employed to refine search results. For example, a search for "bakery" or "grocery store" may be limited to only those advertisers for a selected city, zip code, or area telephone number. This information may be obtained by comparison of the database of advertiser accounts stored in memory 32 in account management server 22. Finally, internationalization methods may be employed to refine search results for users outside the United states. For example, search results in a particular country or language may be generated against the advertiser's account database.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example search result list for use in one embodiment of the present invention, showing the first few results generated from this search term of "zip drive". As shown in FIG. 7, an entry such as 710a in the search result list includes a description of the web site 720, preferably a title and a short textual description, and when clicked by the searcher, hyperlink 730 locates the searcher's browser to the URL at which the web site is described. The URL 740 may also be displayed in the search result list entry 710a, as shown in fig. 7. When the remote searcher views the search result item display 710 of FIG. 7, the past search result items are "clicked on". To complete the "click past," the searcher's click will be recorded in the account management server and redirected to the advertiser's URL through the redirection mechanism described above.

The search result list entries 710 a-710 h may also specify a priority value for the advertiser's search web page. The priority value is an order value, preferably a number, generated and assigned to the search listing by processing system 34 shown in FIG. 1. The priority value is preferably assigned by a software-implemented process that establishes a link between the bid amount, the priority, and the search term of the search listing. This process collects all of the same search listings as a search term, orders the search listings from the highest bid amount to the lowest bid amount, and assigns a priority value to each search listing in order. The highest bid gets the highest priority value and the next highest bid gets the next highest priority value until the lowest bid, which gets the lowest priority value. Preferably, the highest priority value is 1, with subsequent descending priorities being assigned successively higher order values (e.g., 2, 3, 4.). The association between the priority values and the bids is illustrated in FIG. 7, where each paid search listing entry 710 a-710 f displays a bid 750 a-750 f for that entry by the advertiser. If two search listings having the same search term also have the same bid amount, the bid amount received earlier will be assigned a higher priority value. The free lists 710g and 710h do not display offers, but are displayed behind the lowest priority toll list. If there are not enough listings to fill 40 of the search results page, a free listing is preferably displayed. The free list is generated by the search engine using a distributed database and a text search algorithm as is well known in the art. An example of such a search engine may be operated by Inktomi corporation. Search lookup information entered by a remote searcher is used to generate free lists by a general search engine.

As shown in the campaign management menu 170 of FIG. 2, advertisers are provided with several options to manage search listings. First, in the "change bids" selection, the advertiser may change the bid amount of the current search listing in the account. The process by which the system activates the function used to change the offer is illustrated in figure 8. When the advertiser selects the "change bid" menu option, the system searches the user accounts in the database, and displays a search listing of the entire account or a default sub-account for the advertiser's account, as shown in step 810. The search listings may constitute advertiser-defined sub-accounts, and may include one or more search listings. Only one sub-account is displayed at a time. It may also be desirable to allow the advertiser to change the selected sub-account, see step 815. The search listing is then displayed for the selected sub-account, see step 820.

FIG. 9 illustrates a screen displayed to the advertiser in step 810, discussed in detail below. To change the bid, the advertiser user may specify a new bid for an already-bid search term by entering a new bid into a new bid entry field. The advertiser entered bid changes are displayed for viewing by the advertiser, see step 820 in FIG. 8, discussed in more detail below. To update the bid for the display page, the advertiser requests an update of the change result in step 830 shown in FIG. 8. The advertiser may send such a request to the account management server in a number of ways, including clicking on a button graphic.

As shown in step 840 of FIG. 8, upon receiving a bid request to update an advertiser, the system calculates a new current bid, a priority value, and the bid required to become the highest bid for each search listing. The system preferably displays these changes in a subsequent step 850. After the user confirms the changes, the system will update the persistent state by writing the changes to the account in the database.

The search listing data is displayed in tabular form, with each search listing corresponding to a row in the table 900. The search term 902 is shown in the leftmost column, followed by the current bid 904, and the current priority 906 of the search listing. The current priority is followed by a column called "get 1 needed quote" 907, which is the quote needed to get the highest quote. The rightmost column in each row includes a new bid input field 908 that is initially set equal to the current bid.

As shown in fig. 9, the search listing may be displayed as a "sub-account". Each sub-account includes a search list set, where multiple sub-accounts are in an advertiser account. Each sub-account number may be displayed in a single page. The advertiser is preferably able to change the sub-account number through a drop down menu 910 on the display screen shown in FIG. 9. In addition, a group of search lists, which cannot be all displayed in one page, may be displayed in multiple pages, and viewed one by one through the pull-down menu 920. The advertiser is preferably able to change the displayed page by clicking on the drop down menu 920 on the displayed page shown in FIG. 9. The advertiser may specify a new bid for the displayed search listing by entering a new bid into the new bid field 908. To update the results of the changes entered by the advertiser, the advertiser clicks on button 912, sending an update request to the account management server to update the bid price described above.

Many other choices listed in the "Account management" menu 170 shown in FIG. 2 are used as variables for the "Change quote" function described above. For example, if the advertiser selects the "change priority position" option, the advertiser may be presented with a screen as in FIG. 9 for the "change bids" function. However, in the "change priority location" option, the "new bid" field is replaced with a "new priority" field, wherein the advertiser enters a new priority location for the search term. After the advertiser requests an update to this priority, the system calculates a new bid according to any of a number of algorithms available to those skilled in the art. For example, the system may activate a subroutine to find a search listing in the search database having a desired priority/search term combination, extract the relevant offer information for the combination, and then calculate an offer with a high N score; for example, N ═ 1. After the system calculates a new bid and displays a read-only confirmation message to the advertiser, the system updates the bid and priority values upon acceptance by the advertiser.

Selection of "modify list composition" on the account management menu of FIG. 2 may also result in a display of a format similar to that shown in FIG. 9. When the advertiser selects the "modify list composition" option, the advertiser may change the URL, title, or description of the search listing through a web form built for each search listing. Similar to the above process, the table of URLs, titles, and field descriptions may initially include the old URLs, titles, and descriptions as defaults. After the advertiser enters the desired changes, the advertiser may send a request to the system to update the changes. The system then displays a read-only confirmation screen that writes the changes to a persistent state (e.g., the user account database) after the advertiser approves the changes.

A process similar to the one described above may be employed to change all other options in the search listing; for example, the matching options related to the bid search term are changed. The recalculation of the quotations and priorities required for this change can also be done in the same manner as the process discussed above.

In the "delete bid search term" option, the system extracts all search listings in the advertiser account and displays the search listings in a manner similar to that of FIG. 9. Each search listing entry may include a check box for the advertiser to click on, rather than a new bid field. The advertiser can click on the check box and mark an X next to each search term to be deleted, but naturally it can do so in any other way. The advertiser, after selecting all search listings for deletion, requests the system to update these changes, which preferably gives a read-only confirmation message to update the advertiser's account only when the advertiser approves the changes. The "deleted" search listings are deleted from the search database 36 and are no longer present in subsequent searches. However, the search listing will still be part of the advertiser account record for billing and account activity monitoring.

In the "add bid search term" selection, the system provides the advertiser with a plurality of input fields corresponding to the search listing elements. The advertiser then enters information corresponding to the search listing elements into each field, including search terms, website URLs, website titles, website descriptions and offers, and other relevant information. After the advertiser enters the listing data, the system returns a read-only confirmation screen to the advertiser. The system then generates a new search listing and writes it to the account database and search database upon receipt of advertiser approval.

The "Account management" menu 170 shown in FIG. 2 preferably provides the advertiser with a choice of "get bid on search term suggestions". In this case, the advertiser enters a bid search term into a form-driven query box that is displayed to the advertiser. The system reads the search term entered by the advertiser and generates a series of other search terms that help the advertiser find the search term that is most relevant to the content of the advertiser's web site. These other search terms are preferably generated by methods such as using a string matching algorithm with a database of chart search terms and/or a database of synonyms. Advertisers can select search terms to bid on from listings that can be generated by the system. In this case, the system displays the "Add bidded search term" selection entry field described above to the advertiser, entering the selected search term using a form. Preferably, the selected search term is inserted as a default value into the table of each search listing. Default values for other search listing components may also be inserted into the table if desired.

The "Account management" menu 170 shown in FIG. 2 preferably also provides the advertiser with a "project cost" selection. In this option, the advertiser gives a search listing or sub-account indicating that the advertiser wishes to predict "cost per day" and "number of days remaining". The system calculates the cost by using a project cost algorithm, and displays the prediction result to an advertiser through a read-only display screen. Such predictions may be computed using a number of different algorithms known in the art. However, since the price of a search listing is calculated by multiplying the total number of clicks received by the search listing over a specified period of time by the bid amount, each costing method must determine an estimate of the number of clicks per month. Click tracking of search listings may be performed by a software counting method. All hits on the search listing may be tracked by time, and this data may be used to generate an estimate of the number of hits per month and per search term. For a certain search term, an estimate of the number of searches per day is calculated, multiplied by the price of the click. The product is multiplied by a proportion of the average number of hits corresponding to the priority of the search list to obtain the daily operating cost. The remaining days can be obtained by dividing the current balance by the daily operating cost.

Embodiments of the present invention employ a pricing algorithm based on a simple predictor model that assumes that all search term cases are the same. This model assumes that the priority of the advertiser search listing remains constant, with no fluctuation occurring within a month. The algorithm has the advantages of simple realization and high calculation speed. This predictor model is based on the fact that for a search listing, the total number of hits is a function of the search listing's priority. This model then assumes a usage curve for each search term, plotting the number of hits in the search listing as a function of search listing priority as a curve similar to the usage curve for all search terms. Thus, the sum of all hits for all search terms extrapolated over time, the sum of all hits for all search terms given priority, and the sum of all hits for selected search terms may be used in a simple proportional relationship to determine the number of hits for a selected search term given priority. The daily hit estimate for the selected priority of the selected search term is then multiplied by the advertiser's bid for this priority of the search term to determine the daily cost. In addition, if it is known that certain search terms or classes of search terms differ significantly from the general pattern, the revised values for this search term, advertiser, or other parameter may be used to adjust the cost estimate.

Finally, the "Account management" menu 120 shown in FIG. 2 has several options for viewing information relating to the advertiser's campaign. The "view sub-account information" selection displays read-only information associated with the selected sub-account. The "View search term List" selection displays a list of advertiser-selected search terms, preferably grouped by sub-account number, and corresponding URLs, offers, and priorities. The advertiser may also view the current highest bid price for a set of search terms in a search term list selected from a read-only display generated when the system receives a search term requested by the advertiser.

For advertisers who require more comprehensive reporting of search listing activity, a "View report" option may be selected from the advertiser Home Page 120 shown in FIG. 2. In one embodiment of the invention, the "View report" option generates a comprehensive report of the situation up to one year before the current date. For example, daily reports for each of the first 7 days, weekly reports for the first four weeks, monthly reports for the first 12 months, and quarterly reports for the last four quarters can be obtained. Other reports may also be provided according to the interests of the advertiser. Other predetermined report types may include activity tracking over the following time periods: since the account number, Yeast To Date, yearly, Quarter To Date, Month To Date, and Week To Date. The report types may include a detailed report that can be viewed in terms of advertiser account, search listing, and URL, and a brief report that can be viewed in terms of advertiser account and sub-account. These reports may include identification data such as advertiser account and sub-account names, report date, and report type. In addition, these reports may also include keyword search listing account data such as current balance, current balance not allocated, average daily account debit and run rate. These reports may include, among other things, key data such as: search term, URL, bid amount, current priority and number of clicks, number of searches for a certain search term, number of impressions (number of occurrences of search listings in a search result list), and click-through rate (defined as number of clicks/number of impressions). Preferably, the reports can be viewed in HTML through a browser program, printed, or downloaded. It is noted, however, that other viewing options are possible, such as Adobe Acrobat, PostScript, ASCII text, spreadsheet interchange formats (e.g., CSV, tab-deleted), and other known formats.

When the advertiser selects the "View report" option, the system activates a function that displays the types of reports, dates, categories, and view options available. The system preferably generates a report with the following fields, which are initially set to null: report type, report date, report category, and viewing options. Once the advertiser has defined the parameters described above, the system activates a function that generates the report requested to be obtained based on the parameters set by the advertiser and displays the report based on the viewing options parameters.

Finally, a preferred embodiment of the present invention has a context-specific help option, and the advertiser can request help at any time after login. This help option may be provided as an icon or as a button on a display page generated by the system. The advertiser may click on this icon or button to request help, at which time the system generates and displays a help page. The help may be provided as a separate display page, as a searchable index, dialog box, or any other method known in the art.

The foregoing detailed description is to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims, including all equivalents thereof.

Microfilm/copyright notice

In this application there is an appendix to microfilm (3650 frames, 63) which includes copyrighted material. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the microphotograph appendix, as it appears in the patent and trademark office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

Claims (42)

1. A method of generating a search result list in response to a search request by a searcher using a computer network, comprising:

maintaining a database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term;

receiving a search request from a searcher;

identifying a search listing associated with a search term that matches the search request; and

the identified search listings, including search listings whose bid amount is 0, if any, are arranged in the search result list according to the value of their corresponding bid amount.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein ranking the identified search listings comprises ranking the identified search listings in descending order of respective bids.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each search listing in the search result list is assigned a priority value that establishes an association between a bid amount, a priority, and a search term of a search listing.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein ranking the identified search listings comprises ranking the identified search listings based on a priority value.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the search listing further comprises a website title, a website description, and a website uniform resource locator.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an extraction request from a searcher to extract information associated with a search listing of information providers in the search result list.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording an extraction request event including information provider identification information in a database corresponding to a retriever extraction request.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising recording the extraction request event in real time when the remote searcher selects a search listing from the search result list.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the extraction request event includes a search term and a bid amount of a search listing and an account identifier associated with the search term.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the information provider identification information is a website uniform resource locator.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating the search listings in the search listing database in response to a request from a network information provider.

12. A system for generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising:

means for maintaining a database, said database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term;

means for receiving a search request from a searcher;

means for identifying a search listing associated with a search term matching the search request; and

means for arranging the identified search listings in the search result list according to the value of their respective bid amount, including search listings whose bid amount is 0, if any.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the means for arranging the identified search listings comprises means for arranging the identified search listings in descending order of the respective bids.

14. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for assigning a priority value to each search listing in the search result list, the priority value establishing an association between a bid amount, a priority, and a search term of a search listing.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein means for ranking the identified search listings comprises means for ranking the identified search listings based on a priority value.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the search listing further comprises a website title, a website description, and a website uniform resource locator.

17. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for receiving an extraction request from a searcher to extract information associated with a search listing of information providers in the search result list.

18. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for recording an extraction request event including information provider identification information in a database corresponding to a retriever extraction request.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the means for recording the retrieval request event records the retrieval request event in real time when the remote searcher selects a search listing from the search result list.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the extraction request event includes a search term and a bid amount of a search listing and an account identifier associated with the search term.

21. The system of claim 18, wherein the information provider identification information is a website uniform resource locator.

22. The system of claim 12, further comprising means for updating the search listings in the search listing database in response to a request from a network information provider.

23. A method for generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising:

maintaining a database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term;

receiving a search request from a searcher;

identifying a search listing associated with a search term having a normalized form that matches a normalized search term in a retrieval request; and

a search result list is provided that includes the identified search listing.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising normalizing search terms associated with a search listing or in the search request to eliminate common non-normative search terms.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the normalizing comprises eliminating non-normality of capitalization and pluralization.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the normalizing comprises generating a match using a string matching algorithm.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising storing a synonym dictionary database, wherein the normalizing comprises referencing the synonym dictionary database to generate matches between search terms having identical meanings.

28. The method of claim 23, further comprising refining the search result list by a localization method.

29. The method of claim 23, further comprising arranging the identified search listings in the search result list according to their respective bid values.

30. The method of claim 23, wherein the search listing further comprises a website title, a website description, and a website uniform resource locator.

31. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

receiving an extraction request from a searcher to extract information associated with a search listing of an information provider in the search result list; and

an extraction request event including information provider identification information is recorded in a database corresponding to an extraction request from a searcher.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the information provider identification information is a website uniform resource locator.

33. A system for generating a search result list in response to a search request of a searcher using a computer network, comprising:

means for maintaining a database, said database comprising a plurality of search listings, each search listing associated with a bid amount and a search term;

means for receiving a search request from a searcher;

means for identifying a search listing associated with a search term having a normalized form that matches a normalized search term in a retrieval request; and

means for providing a search result list including the identified search listing.

34. The system of claim 33, further comprising means for normalizing search terms associated with a search listing or in the search request to eliminate common non-normalization of search terms.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the means for normalizing comprises means for eliminating non-normalization of capital letters and pluralization.

36. The system of claim 34, wherein the means for normalizing comprises means for generating a match using a string matching algorithm.

37. The system of claim 34, further comprising means for storing a database of synonym dictionaries, wherein the means for normalizing comprises means for generating matches between search terms having identical meanings with reference to the database of synonym dictionaries.

38. The system of claim 33, further comprising means for refining the search result list by a localized method.

39. The system of claim 33, further comprising means for arranging the identified search listings in the search result list according to their respective bid values.

40. The system of claim 33, wherein the search listing further comprises a website title, a website description, and a website uniform resource locator.

41. The system of claim 33, further comprising:

means for receiving an extraction request from a searcher to extract information associated with a search listing of information providers in the search result list; and

means for recording an extraction request event including information provider identification information in a database corresponding to an extraction request from a searcher.

42. The system of claim 41, wherein the information provider identification information is a website uniform resource locator.