Abstract:
A network based advertising selection system for selecting and delivering adverting content to a user computer. A content server receives a request for content from a user computer and responds by transmitting content pages with space for one or more advertisements and a referral command to a direct connect server. The user computer follows the referral command and requests an advertisement from a direct connect server. The direct connect server receives advertising selection criteria and generates and transmits a request for an advertisement to a advertisement selection server. The creative selection server identifies of one or more advertisements and sends the location of the advertisement to the user computer.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]    This application is based on provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/175,113, filed Jan. 6, 2000. 
     
    
     
       FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0002]    This invention relates to the field of digital advertising via computer networks, and more particularly, to a method and system used to dynamically select and display advertisement to users via a computer network, such as the Internet.  
         BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0003]    With the growth and commercialization of the Internet a method and apparatus for selecting and delivering Internet based advertisements has much utility. Much of the content on the Internet is located on the World Wide Web, the often graphical portion of the Internet which has become the defacto location for publishing information.  
           [0004]    In prior systems users connected to a serverwhich contained content which was of interest to the user. The content server also contained one or more advertisements, known in the art as a “creative.” Creatives may include one or more photographs, sound clips, movie clips, or some other form of communicating a message, but are typically graphical in nature and therefore are larger in size than mere text. Creatives were served to the users directly from the content server. This system had an advantage in that only one content server was necessary thereby reducing hardware costs. However, for busy content sites one content server was not desirable. As the number of users accessing the content server increased the load on the content server increased as well. The added load of serving creatives often bogged down the content server. Content providers who wished to reap the benefits of placing advertisements on their site either had to manually place the ads themselves by editing their web pages, or allow a third party, such as an advertising company, access to their content server.  
           [0005]    As HTML (hypertext markup language), HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) and other Internet related protocols advanced content servers were able to supply the user the requested content (typically HTML code), and then redirect the users to retrieve the creatives from a different URL (universal resource locator), typically on a different server. HTML is the programing language for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web, and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. This redirection allowed for load balancing between several servers and subsequently faster performance for the user. Additional, advances now allow for creatives to contain click-thru HTMLcode in addition to the message or graphic. Click-thru code automatically redirects the user to a new URL when the user clicks on the creative.  
           [0006]    As advertising on the Internet further matured methods for counting the number of times a particular creative was viewed were developed. Additional tools have also been developed which enabled creatives to be targeted only at users who are most likely to be interested the creative, or by those users who fit a given profile. These tools base their decision on several factors including information provided by a user, and by cookies stored on the user&#39;s computer, and other targeting information.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0007]    The present invention provides a system and method for rapidly and efficiently serving electronic advertisements to users via a computer network. In certain embodiments according to the present invention, when a user transmits a request to a content server for content, the content server returns the requested content and one or more redirect commands which instruct the user to retrieve one or more creatives from a different server. The user follows the redirect instruction and requests the creative from the second server. The second server is merely a front-end server which gathers information about the user and information about which content server and page the user is currently viewing and then communicates this information directly to an creative selection server. The creative selection server selects the actual creative, based on the information communicated to it by the front-end server, and based on a number of other pre-programmed factors.  
           [0008]    The creative selection server communicates the complete location of the selected creative back to be front-end server, which in turn sends the user a redirect to the location of the selected creative. The user follows the redirect instruction and requests the creative from the creative server. The creative server sends the creative and any additional click-thru code to the user, who incorporates the creative into the content from the content server. While this series of redirection and the like is seemingly complex, it is quite transparent to the user. 
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0009]    [0009]FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the invention.  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a second embodiment of the invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0011]    In the following embodiments of the invention, common reference numerals are used to represent the same components. If the features of an embodiment are incorporated into a single system, these components can be shared and perform all the functions of the described embodiments.  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 1. shows a typical block diagram of one embodiment of the invention. A user  101  connected to a network, such as the Internet, typically uses some form of retrieval tool like a web browser such as Netscape Navigator, or the like, to communicate with web servers connected to the network. Netscape and Navigator are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation. Communications between various nodes (users and content servers) on the Internet takes place using the TCP/IP communications protocol, and at higher layer HTTP and HTML communications protocols. A detailed description of the IP communications protocol is discussed in  Internetworking with TCP/IP,  3rd ed., Douglas Comer, Prentice Hall, 1995, which is fully incorporated herein by reference. The user begins the communication by transmitting a request for content  103  to a content server  105 . Of course the user does not directly perform the specified function, rather the user instructs a software program like a web the browser to do so; hereafter for the sake of clarity the term “user” will be used to identify the computer host operated by the user, and its attendant hardware and software. This communication is typically in the form of an HTML request for a URL. The content server returns the requested content  107 , typically a web page containing HTML code, and also includes one or more redirection commands  107  which redirects the user to the DCS server  111 . Typically the redirection command  107  is an HTML &lt;href&gt;, or an HTTP redirect command which contains a fully qualified URL. HTML and HTTP are well-known in the art, and comprehensive documentation about HTML, HTTP and related topics are disclosed on the World Wide Web Consortium&#39;s web site, &lt;http://www.w3.org/&gt;, which is fully incorporated herein by reference.  
         [0013]    The user  101  follows the redirect command received from the content server  105  and issues an new HTML request to the DCS server  111 . The DCS server  111  is designed and programed to work in conjunction with the content server  105 , and both are co-located at the same site  127 . The content server&#39;s redirection command  107  contains a URL to a specific location on the DCS server  111  corresponding to the location the user is browsing on the content server. Accordingly, the DCS server  111  “knows” the location of the content page the user is currently viewing without the need for an additional message from the content server  105 .  
         [0014]    The DCS server  111  receives additional information about the user from various methods such as cookies, the user&#39;s IP address, and other user specified parameters, and uses this information to generate a profile of the user. The DCS server  111  may be programed to generate a more exhaustive user profile, or to create a reduced profile. In an alternative embodiment the DCS server  111  may generate a user profile which does not contain any actual information about the user, including the user&#39;s IP address, for use in guarding the user&#39;s privacy. The DCS server  111 , would instead, map the user&#39;s IP address from the correct IP address to a non-public IP address such as 1.1.1.1, or the like, thereby protecting the user&#39;s privacy. The DCS server  111  would reverse map the non-public IP address to the user&#39;s correct IP address to facilitate further communications with the user&#39;s computer from the DCS server  111 . This technique can be employed to mask other user attributes in addition to the user&#39;s IP address.  
         [0015]    The DCS server  111  then generates a request for a creative  113  message which includes the generated user profile and the current content page and transmits the request for a creative  113  to the Creative selection server  115 . The DCS server  111  may transmit the request for a creative  113  to the Creative selection server  115  via the network. A direct connection may also be used. The DCS server  111  may also be programed to only send a sample of the user requests, such as every one in three requests, to the Creative selection server  115 , and to cache and reuse a selected creative, thereby reducing network congestion and improving system performance.  
         [0016]    By using the DCS server  111  to generate the request for a creative  113  system performance can be maximized by eliminating certain processes and transmissions. For example, certain features may be enabled or disabled, such as the use of a keyword search feature (i.e. “boating” is often used to select creatives of interests to boat enthusiasts), or the transmission of the type of Internet web browser the user is operating. Additionally, since all requests for a creative  113  are between the DCS server  111  and the Creative selection server  115  a standard transmission format may be used eliminating various communications overhead in the transmission. One such example of overhead is the tracking and transmission of various categories of creatives by implantinga “C” code for the category in the request (i.e. code such as “C=12” in implanted in each request). In the present invention the use of a category code may be shortened to only “12” as the Creative selection server  115  will know the meaning of the element “12” when received in a specific location of the request for a creative  113 . An additional benefit of using a DCS server  111  to generate the request for a creative  113  is that the DCS server is able to cache typical user profiles with high accuracy, which greatly reduces the load on the processor.  
         [0017]    The co-location of the DCS server  111  with the Content server  105  at the same site  127  provides two benefits: First, the user already has performed any needed domain name to IP address queries and the route to the Content server has already been discovered and is cached, thereby reducing any network delay in following the redirection command  107  to a different site. Second, the content provider may determine the level of service provided to its users as the network connection to the DCS server  111  is the same as to content server  105 . As the request for a creative  113  message is very small and the load on the Creative selection server  115  has been reduced, the network connection to the site  127  sets the level of service provided. Of course, network communication is only as fast as the slowest connection in the network, and this typically is the user&#39;s connection.  
         [0018]    The Creative selection server  115  receives the request for a creative  113  from the DCS server  111 . Using the information contained in the request with other information contained in its database of creatives, the Creative selection server  115  selects an appropriate creative for this user&#39;s session with the content server  105 . The Creative selection server  115  then communicates the fully qualified URL for the selected creative to DCS server  117 . The DCS server  111  receives the fully qualified URL from the Creative selection server  115  and generates an appropriate HTML &lt;href&gt; or an HTTP redirect command which is sent to the user  101  in response to the users request. In the event that the Creative selection server  115  does not respond to the DCS server  111  request for the creative  113  within a specified time the DCS server  111  will send the user a fail safe creative, or a fail safe &lt;href&gt; or redirect command.  
         [0019]    The user  101  follows the redirect command received from the DCS server  111  and issues a new HTML request to the creative server  123 , requesting the creative. The creative server  123  responds to the user&#39;s request  121  and transmits the creative  125  to the user  101 . The user  101  then incorporates the creative into the original content provided by the content server  105 . The original HTML code supplied by the content server  105  often specifies various attributes of the creative, such as its location on the page, its size, and the like.  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 2. shows a typical block diagram of a second embodiment of the invention. A user  201  connected to a network, such as the Internet, typically uses some form of retrieval tool like a web browser such as Netscape, or the like, to communicate with web servers connected to the network. The user begins the communication by transmitting a request for content  203  to a content server  205 . This communication is typically in the form of an HTML request for a URL. The content server  205  also receives additional information about the user from various methods such as cookies, the user&#39;s IP address, and other user specific parameters. After receiving the user&#39;s request  203  the content server  205  forwards the users information and the web page the user requested to the DCS server  209  via communications path to  207 . The DCS server  209  is programed to work in conjunction with the content server  205 , and may be physically located at the same hosting site or located somewhere else on the network. The DCS server  209  compiles all the pertinent information mentioned above and generates a request for a creative  211  to the Creative selection server  213 . The request for a creative  211  may contain the complete set of compiled information, or a subset as necessary for the Creative selection server  213  to select an appropriate creative. In an alternative embodiment the DCS server  209  may generate a request which does not contain any actual information about the user, including the user&#39;s IP address, for use in guarding the user&#39;s privacy. The DCS server  209 , would instead, map the user&#39;s IP address from the correct IP address to a non-public IP address such as 1.1.1.1, or the like, thereby protecting the user&#39;s privacy. The DCS server  209  would reverse map the non-public IP address to the user&#39;s correct IP address to facilitate further communications with the user&#39;s computer from the DCS server  209 . This technique can be employed to mask other user attributes in addition to the user&#39;s IP address.  
         [0021]    The Creative selection server  213  receives the request for a creative  211  from the DCS server  209 . Using the information contained in the request with other information contained in its database of creatives, the Creative selection server  213  selects an appropriate creative for this user&#39;s session with the content server  205 . The Creative selection server  213  then communicates the fully qualified URL for the selected creative to DCS server  217 . The DCS server  209  receives the fully qualified URL from the Creative selection server  213  and generates an appropriate HTML &lt;href&gt; or an HTTP redirect command which is sent to the content server  205  for incorporation into the final HTML code sent to the user  201  in response to the users request for content  203 . In the event that the Creative selection server  213  does not respond to the DCS server  209  request for the creative  211  within a specified time the DCS server  209  will send the user a fail safe creative, or a fail safe &lt;href&gt;or redirect command.  
         [0022]    The user  201  follows the redirect command received from the content server  205  and issues a new HTML request  223  to the creative server  225 , requesting the creative. The creative server  225  responds to the user&#39;s request  223  and transmits the creative  227  to the user  201 . The user  201  then incorporates the creative into the original content provided by the content server  205 . The original HTML code supplied by the content server  205  specified the various attributes of the creative including such items as location on the page, size, and the like.