Abstract:
A watchdog system for identifying failures in uniform resource locators (URLs) respective of advertized content. The system comprises a database containing at least campaign information, the at least campaign information containing at least a URL to be monitored by the watchdog system, the URL directs to advertized content; and a server connected to the database and operative to monitor the at least URL for identification of a failure in the URL providing the advertized content, and performing a corrective action for correcting the URL based on definitions in the at least campaign information.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 61/306,734 filed on Feb. 22, 2010, the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     The invention generally relates to web based advertisement, and more specifically to identification of problems in URLs or web site malfunction used in the process of conversion of an advertisement into a sale. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The ubiquity of availability to access information using the Internet and the worldwide web (WWW), within a short period of time, and by means of a variety of access devices, has naturally drawn the focus of advertisers. The advertiser wishes to quickly and cost effectively reach the target audience and once reached, enable effective conversion of the observer of an advertisement into a purchaser of goods or services. The advertisers therefore pay search engines, such as Google® or Yahoo!®, as well as content advertising services such as Double-Click, for the placement of their advertisement when the keyword is presented by a user for a search. 
     In order to reach a product, the advertiser on the web provides an advertisement that is linked to a universal resource locator (URL). The advertisements are reached, or displayed typically in response to entering the search keywords or page content. When the advertisement is clicked upon the viewer is transferred directly or indirectly to a landing page where a transaction may take place. In realty, many of the clicks are lost because of various problems. This is because web sites, and their respective URLs, continuously go through changes, updates, and upgrades, which are an error prone process, as well as simple human errors and system redirects. It may take hours to months until a problem surfaces and gets fixed. 
     It would be therefore advantageous to provide a solution that identifies problems in such URLs. It would be further advantageous if such a solution enables the user to overcome the problem in real time. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Certain embodiments of the invention include a watchdog system for identifying failures in uniform resource locators (URLs) respective of advertized content. The system comprises a database containing at least campaign information, the at least campaign information containing at least a URL to be monitored by the watchdog system, the URL directs to advertized content; and a server connected to the database and operative to monitor the at least URL for identification of a failure in the URL providing the advertized content, and performing a corrective action for correcting the URL based on definitions in the at least campaign information. 
     Certain embodiments of the invention also include watch-dogging uniform resource locators (URLs) respective of advertized content in a campaign. The method comprises determining a set of URLs providing the advertized content in the campaign; for each URL in the set of URLs performing: monitoring the URL to identify a failure in the URL; checking an error type of the identified failure in the URL; and providing a corrective action for correcting the URL based on definitions in campaign information and the error type. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Various embodiments are particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
         FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of a system implemented in accordance with the principles of the invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a flowchart for performing the watchdog operations in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; and 
         FIG. 3  is a reporting table provided by the watchdog operations. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The embodiments disclosed herein are only examples of the many possible advantageous uses and implementations of the innovative teachings presented herein. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed inventions. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others. In general, unless otherwise indicated, singular elements may be in plural and vice versa with no loss of generality. In the drawings, like numerals refer to like parts through several views. 
     The universal resource locator (URL) is on the critical path of any web based advertisement system. Loss of clicks, sales, brand quality or tracking data as well as landing on a wrong page all result in loss of revenue. The watchdog identifies failures respective to URLs and may act to address such failures. In one embodiment, the URLs&#39; failures are fixed by providing alerts. In another embodiment, broken URLs are replaced with alternative URLs relating to landing pages with a better keyword correlation for the needs of the user being watched by the watchdog. Furthermore, a site or URL malfunction may be detected and an action to suspend, or otherwise pause or terminate a campaign may take place thereby preserving financial resources. 
       FIG. 1  depicts an exemplary and non-limiting system  100  implemented in accordance with the principles of the invention. A plurality of user nodes  120  are connected to a network  110 . The user nodes  120  may be, but are not limited to, personal computers (PCs), personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, smartphones, tablet PCs, and so on. The network  110  includes, but not by way of limitation, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a metro area network (MAN), the Internet, the worldwide web (WWW), and other types of communication networks, as well as any combination thereof. 
     A web server  130  is connected to the network  110 , the web server  130  being capable of responding to keywords, which further includes advertisements that may be displayed on a user node  120  screen including, but not limited, to display advertisements responsive to the content of a web page, and that are at least associated with a universal resource locator (URL) for the purpose of transferring the user directly or indirectly to a landing page for the display of a related advertisement and related actions, such as but not by way of limitation, purchase of products or services. In some cases, one or more proxy servers  140  are used to redirect the URL until arriving at the landing page on one of the plurality of web servers  130 . 
     A proxy server  140  may be further used, in one embodiment, as a tracking server of an advertisement campaign. An advertiser handling a campaign stores the campaign parameters  165  in database  160 , the database  160  coupled to the network  110 . In one embodiment of the invention, a plurality of databases  160  may be used. Campaign parameters may include, but not by way of limitation, cost per click, keywords, URLs, and other relevant information. 
     A management server  150 , also referred to herein as the server  150 , is also connected to the network  110  and is further equipped with a watchdog module  155 . In an embodiment, the module includes instructions embedded in tangible memory of the server  150 , that when executed by the server  150 , perform the function of a watchdog as further explained herein below in more detail. It should be further noted that campaign information may be used to prioritize URLs to be watched by the watchdog, to provide more appropriate URLs, and to make decisions on actions to be taken responsive thereof. 
       FIG. 2  shows an exemplary and non-limiting flowchart  200  for performing the watchdog operations on, for example, system  100 , and further in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. In S 210 , it is determined, based on the campaign content provided in the database  160  for each campaign  165 , which URL is to be checked and at what frequency. The reason for this requirement is to balance the load on the relevant web server  130 . It should be noted that it is not a good practice to perform the check at a percent higher than a threshold value which is a fraction of the full load of the web server  130  provided with its real traffic. 
     In S 220 , checks are made with respect to errors for those URLs determined to be within the current group of checked URLs. The checks can be made, for example and without limitation, by attempting to perform an access using those URLs. In S 230  it is checked whether an error notification at the routing level was provided, e.g., an error code notification that the URL does not exist. An example for such an error code is HTML  404  error code. If so, continuing execution with S 240 ; otherwise, continuing execution with S 250 . In S 240 , an alternate URL is provided. The alternate URL may be provided by the respective campaign  165  stored in the database  160 , and subsequently execution continues with S 280 . Providing of an alternate URL can also be done by matching URLs harvested from the client web site by actively searching for campaign content imitating the behavior of a user surfing the internet. In another embodiment, the alternate URL is provided by the watchdog module  155  based on an alternate search for the same keywords that yield a proper response. 
     In S 250 , checks are made for errors with respect to the landing page. The checks can be made, for example and without limitation, by attempting to perform an access using those URLs and checking for error messages. Such errors may include, but are not limited to, an error message in a valid page, and hence to a page error, indicating that the product advertised is not available anymore as well as other error messages known to those of ordinary skill in the art. In S 260 , it is checked whether a landing page error is search related, and if so execution returns to S 240 , where an alternate URL is provided; otherwise, execution continues with S 270 . A search related error is an error relating to the search of an item that may no longer exist in an inventory or not offered anymore. 
     In S 270 , it is checked whether detected landing page errors are campaign related, and if so execution continues with S 280 ; otherwise, execution continues with S 290 . A campaign error may be, without limitation, the case where too many redirect requests are used to reach at the landing page, thereby significantly reducing the user experience. In one embodiment of the invention, responsive to detection of a campaign error and/or report thereof, the watchdog module  155  pauses, or otherwise suspends the campaign. The reason for doing such an action is to prevent the case where despite the error, campaign funds are utilized even though the results are not per the expectations of the campaign. It provides the campaign manager with the opportunity to take corrective actions and overcome the reason for the one or more detected errors, and then resume the campaign. 
     In S 280 , a report is generated to inform a campaign manager of the errors detected by the watchdog module  155 . An exemplary and non-limiting table is shown in  FIG. 3  that contains the time when the error was detected, the severity of the error, the code respective of the error, the URL used (not shown in detail due to length of URLs but known to those of ordinary skill in the art), and the type of check performed. Other columns may be added and or subtracted from the report to tailor the report to the needs of the campaign and types of errors collected. In one embodiment of the invention, the report generated by the watchdog module  155  further provides information on of losses resulting from the errors over time, as well as prediction for future losses if such are not timely repaired. A report may be displayed on a screen of a campaign manager, provided as an e-mail alert, or by any other means of notification known to those of ordinary skill in the art. 
     In S 290 , it is checked whether additional URLs are to be checked, and if so execution continues with S 210 ; otherwise, execution terminates. By design, the watchdog avoids impacting the tracking system, by operating transparently, attempting to reduce the load on the web sites as result of its operation. In one embodiment, the watchdog is enabled to suggest more suitable landing pages as well as to generate warnings for bad landing pages. 
     The watchdog module is therefore designed to identify broken URLs, invalid URLs, and URLs that cause landing on wrong landing pages. The watchdog module is further capable of minimizing failure time by providing real time alerts of failures. In one embodiment of the invention, the watchdog module is further enabled to provide land in domain verification as well as alerts thereof. Furthermore, with the campaign information  165  being configurable, the campaign manager, by updating the campaign information in the campaign information  165  can configure the test bench for the campaign. The watchdog module may be further enabled to monitor up/down statistics, DNS times, time-to-first-byte, transfer times, and various other information important to provide a better user experience. Furthermore, in one embodiment of the invention, the watchdog module may pause, suspend or terminate the campaign and allow for the correction of a detected error. This prevents unnecessary payment for useless clicks as far as the campaign is concerned but valid as far as a provider is concerned. 
     One of ordinary skill should appreciate that teachings discussed herein are not limited to search advertisements. Other usages of the principles of the invention would be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. Furthermore, it should be noted that the campaign information database is merely one source for URLs to be watched by the watchdog, however, it may be necessary to browse the internet or access one or more external databases to find the actual URL. 
     The principles of the invention are implemented as hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof. Moreover, the software is preferably implemented as an application program tangibly embodied on a program storage unit or computer readable medium consisting of parts, or of certain devices and/or a combination of devices. The application program may be uploaded to, and executed by, a machine comprising any suitable architecture. Preferably, the machine is implemented on a computer platform having hardware such as one or more central processing units (“CPUs”), a memory, and input/output interfaces. The computer platform may also include an operating system and microinstruction code. The various processes and functions described herein may be either part of the microinstruction code or part of the application program, or any combination thereof, which may be executed by a CPU, whether or not such computer or processor is explicitly shown. In addition, various other peripheral units may be connected to the computer platform such as an additional data storage unit and a printing unit. All or some of the servers maybe combined into one or more integrated servers. Furthermore, a non-transitory computer readable medium is any computer readable medium except for a transitory propagating signal. 
     All examples and conditional language recited herein are intended for pedagogical purposes to aid the reader in understanding the principles of the invention and the concepts contributed by the inventor to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions. Moreover, all statements herein reciting principles, aspects, and embodiments of the invention, as well as specific examples thereof, are intended to encompass both structural and functional equivalents thereof. Additionally, it is intended that such equivalents include both currently known equivalents as well as equivalents developed in the future, i.e., any elements developed that perform the same function, regardless of structure.