Abstract:
A system and method for finding relevant advertisements to a search engine user&#39;s query where said query is received by a search engine, returning one or more search results by the search engine and analyzing the search results to determine more precisely or more broadly the search engine user&#39;s objective or interest and using the analysis to determine which advertisements, stored in an advertisement database, to present to the search engine user.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    The present invention claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/817,451 dated Jun. 30, 2006, which is incorporated herein in its entirety and PCT/US2007/72620 filed Jul. 2, 2007. 
     
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The present invention relates to a method for determining relevant advertisements to show to a search engine user (“User”) who has issued a search query against a search engine. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0003]    A search engine allows end-users to search for items within a data repository. Typically, a search engine user will provide to the search engine one or more search words (“Search Words”), and the search engine will show a list of pages that contain those words (“Search Results”), which may optionally contain an excerpt from each page (“Page Excerpt”) which may optionally show the Search Words in their context. One of the most common forms of a search engine is an Internet Search Engine (ISE), which maintains a list of words appearing in pages available over the Internet. Such search engines are well known in the art. 
         [0004]    Search engines will often show a list of advertisements matching the Search Words. This is usually achieved by having the advertiser provide a list of words (“Keywords”), which, if matched by the Search Words, will cause the advertisement to appear. For example, an advertiser may choose the Keywords ‘volleyball’ and ‘shoes’, which will cause his advertisement to appear if the search engine user issues a query such as ‘best volleyball shoes for women’. This current method is limited in that the search engine user&#39;s objective may not always be easily predicted from his or her Search Words alone. Because of this, the search engine user may not be able to find a relevant advertiser to meet their needs and, similarly, the search engine may lose potential business in not presenting relevant advertisements that the search engine user might otherwise have clicked on. This current method also suffers because the process of generating all the possible Keywords by the advertiser can be cumbersome and incomplete, and, further, could result in outdated keyword lists. 
       OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF INVENTION 
       [0005]    The object of the invention is to provide more relevant advertisements to a search engine user and further to allow advertisements placed by advertisers to more easily be matched against a wider range of Search Words, without requiring advertisers to invest a substantial amount of effort in manually creating more Keywords. This object is achieved by providing a system and method for utilizing the Search Results, as opposed to utilizing the Search Words, as a means to generate richer information that can in turn be used to better match against relevant advertisements. 
         [0006]    The search engine user issues a search query to a search engine. The search engine analyzes the search query and presents a list of relevant search results. The search engine then analyzes said search results and determines whether additional information is likely relevant to the search engine user&#39;s interest or objective in executing their search query. This additional information is fed into matching criteria that provides more relevant advertisements to the search engine user than they might have otherwise obtained had the search engine only used the Search Words to determine which advertisements were relevant. 
         [0007]    According to the present invention there is provided a method of choosing advertisements to be shown to a search engine user, comprising the steps of: by an advertiser, providing an advertisement and at least one advertising criterion to a search engine; by a user, performing a search on the search engine using search words, the search providing search results; by the search engine, choosing an advertisement based on the search results and advertising criterion; and showing the chosen advertisement and the search results to the user. 
         [0008]    According to the present invention there is provided a method of choosing advertisements to be shown to a search engine user, comprising the steps of: providing at least one advertising criterion; obtaining search results created by a search engine as a result of receiving and analyzing a search query made by the search engine user; analyzing the search results to produce analysis results; and using the analysis results to choose an advertisement matched to the at least one advertising criterion. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0009]      FIG. 1  is a functional block diagram of a search engine user and an advertiser interfacing with a search engine; 
           [0010]      FIG. 2  shows a general flow chart describing the main steps of the method of the present invention; 
           [0011]      FIG. 3  is a logic diagram showing the key sequence of steps in one embodiment of this invention as it pertains to the analysis of the Search Results. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0012]      FIG. 1  is a functional block diagram of a User  100  that is interfaced with a search engine  102 . Many types of search engines are known, for example Internet Search Engines (ISE) like Google. The search engine utilizes a Search Index  103  and an Advertisement Database  104 . An Advertiser  106  is also interfaced with the search engine. User  100  submits Search Words to search engine  102  for the purpose of receiving the Search Results. Advertiser  106  submits advertisements and at least one Advertising Criterion (see below) for the purpose of having advertisements shown to User  100 . 
         [0013]    The present inventors have developed a method for choosing which advertisements to show to the User, based on the results of the search query he or she made, rather than on the Search Words alone. Since the User enters the Search Words for the purpose of receiving the Search Results, it is reasonable to assume that the Search Results are related to the objective of the User when making the query. 
         [0014]      FIG. 2  shows a general flow chart describing the main steps of the method of the present invention: 
         [0015]    In step  200 , an Advertiser ( 106 ) specifies an advertisement and corresponding Advertising Criteria for the advertisement 
         [0016]    In step  202 , a search engine User ( 100 ) submits Search Words to the search engine ( 102 ). 
         [0017]    In step  204 , the search engine uses the search index ( 103 ) to generate a set of Search Results for the User&#39;s request. 
         [0018]    In step  206 , the Search Results, optionally combined with the Search Words, are used to query the advertising database ( 104 ) to determine which advertisements to show based on the Advertising Criteria from step  200 . 
         [0019]    In step  208 , the Search Results and the Advertisements are shown to the User. 
         [0020]    A particularly inventive aspect of the present invention relates to step  206 , in which the Search Results are used to query the advertisements database. One possible embodiment of Step  206  is described in more detail in a series of substeps  302 - 308 , shown in  FIG. 3 . The method includes two major stages: Campaign Setup and Search Results Analysis. 
       Campaign Setup 
       [0021]    The Campaign Setup is the process by which an advertiser provides one criterion Advertising Criterion”) or more than one criterion (“Advertising Criteria”) for presenting his or her advertisement. The advertiser wishes to have the advertisement shown to the User whenever the Search Results match the Advertising Criterion or Advertising Criteria. One example of an Advertising Criterion is a word match. In this example, the advertiser provides a word or a set of words, and the advertisement appears if the word or set of words are found in the content of the documents referenced by the Search Results (the “Search Result Documents”) or in a corresponding Page Excerpt. A Page Excerpt is the small portion of text shown with the Search Results that highlights the search terms within the document. 
         [0022]    It should be noted that all Advertising Criteria may be defined to match not only the Search Results shown to the User, but also Search Results that match the search query but are not shown to the User (e.g. a specific search may have 500 Search Results, but for simplicity the search engine will only show the first 10 to the User). 
         [0023]    Another example of an Advertising Criterion is a website address or a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). For example, an advertiser can enter a website address or URI of a corporate partner and request that the advertisement is shown whenever the website address or URI appears in the User&#39;s Search Results. 
         [0024]    Yet another example of an Advertising Criterion is a meta-property. For example, an advertiser can enter a company name and request that the advertisement is shown whenever the User&#39;s Search Results contains a document whose properties specify that is was authored by said company. 
       Search Results Analysis 
       [0025]    The Search Results Analysis is the process in which the search engine determines which advertisements to show when the User makes a search query. The first step of Search Results Analysis is receiving the Search Results that were generated as a result of the search query. As mentioned, Page Excerpts, as well as the entire content of the Search Result Documents are considered part of the Search Results for the purpose of analysis. The second step of Search Results Analysis is to check which of the Advertising Criterion or Advertising Criteria previously provided by advertisers are related to the current Search Results. The third step of Search Results Analysis is advertisement prioritization. In some cases, the search engine may find that according to the Advertising Criteria it received for different advertisements, several advertisements should be presented to the User. In this case the search engine may want to omit some of them and/or present them in a certain order. The search engine may take into consideration such things as the type of each matching Advertising Criterion, its strength, and the amount of money the advertiser is willing to pay to have his advertisement used. Once the relevant advertisements are prioritized and filtered, the Search Results, as well as the prioritized list of advertisements are presented to the User. 
       Application Example 
       [0026]    One embodiment of the invention is implemented as follows and provided as Appendix I to this patent as working code for greater clarity. In this embodiment, we consider an Internet Search Engine (ISE,  102  in  FIG. 1 ), and a User ( 100  in  FIG. 1 ) connected to the ISE through a web browser running on a personal computer (PC), though any inventor skilled in the art will realize that this invention can be easily adapted to any search engine that is accessible over any computer network or even local to the search engine user&#39;s computer. 
         [0027]    1. The User executes a query through the web browser running on the PC against the ISE; 
         [0028]    2. The ISE analyzes the search query and generates a list of relevant search results ( 202 - 204  in  FIG. 2 ) as well as a list of advertisements; 
         [0029]    3. The ISE then analyzes the search results ( 300 - 308  in  FIG. 3 ); 
         [0030]    4. The ISE is queried for more advertisements by using the results from the analysis in step 3; 
         [0031]    5. The search results, the original advertisement list from step 2, as well as the advertisements returned by the query in step 4 are presented to the User. 
         [0032]      FIG. 3  is a logic diagram showing the key sequence of steps in one embodiment of this invention as it pertains to the analysis of the Search Results. In  FIG. 3 , each Page Excerpt in the search results, as generated in step  204  of  FIG. 2 , is extracted in step  300 . Because the inventors have determined empirically that the words adjacent to the Search Words provide related information, further to understanding the User&#39;s objective or interest, a sliding window for each Page Excerpt is created in step  302 . Preferably, the window includes five words, however, more or less than five words can also be used. When creating a window of words, the following words are skipped:
       i. Any of the Search Words or a stemmed equivalent.   ii. What is commonly known in the art as stop words (e.g. ‘the’, ‘an’, ‘that’).         
         [0035]    For example, if the Search Word is “BR50” and the Page Excerpt is “the BR50 Motorola battery provides your RAZR with three hours of nonstop . . . ”, the corresponding windows would contain:
       [Motorola battery provides your RAZR]   [battery provides your RAZR three]   [provides your RAZR three hours]   [your RAZR three hours nonstop]
 
In this example, “of”, “the”, “with” are stop words, and the search word “BR50” is also ignored. As mentioned, a window size of 5 words was empirically found to work best.
       
 
         [0040]    For each window, all the word combinations are generated in step  304 . For greater clarity, the use of the word “combination” is in the statistical sense, where we generate an exhaustive list of all word combinations and orderings. For example, if the window contained [a b c], this embodiment would generate:
       [a]   [b]   [c]   [a b]   [b a]   [a c]   [c a]   [b c]   [c b]   [a b c]   [a c b]   [b a c]   [b c a]   [c a b]   [c b a]
 
One skilled in the art will see that this combinatorial generation of words may discard potentially valuable information based on the original word order in the Page Excerpt. However, treating the words as order-independent has the advantage of increasing the co-occurrence of significant words and it allows one to treat transposed words as being similar. For example, this technique allows us to recognize that [BR50 Motorola battery] is a concept related to [battery BR50], because one of the combinations of [BR50 Motorola battery] will match one of the combinations of [battery BR50].
       
 
         [0056]    Each unique word combination is then scored based upon its number of words and the number of times it appears in the Page Excerpts in step  306  as follows:
       i. Each word in the word combination scores one point (“1”) unless it is one of the following:
           a. A “noise” word (see Table 1 for a list of noise words for English). In this case, the word is given a score of 0.2.   b. Adjectives and adverbs, which receive a score of 0.2.   
           ii. The scores for the words in each window are summed and then multiplied by the number of times the word combination appeared in all the Page Excerpts and then multiplied by the square root of the number of words in the word combination. The word combinations are then sorted according to their score.       
 
         [0000]    
       
         
               
             
               
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                 TABLE 1 
               
               
                   
               
               
                 A list of English Noise Words 
               
               
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
               
             
          
           
               
                 above 
                 before 
                 either 
                 has 
                 many 
               
               
                 across 
                 beforehand 
                 eleven 
                 hasnt 
                 may 
               
               
                 after 
                 behind 
                 else 
                 have 
                 me 
               
               
                 afterwards 
                 being 
                 elsewhere 
                 he 
                 meanwhile 
               
               
                 again 
                 below 
                 empty 
                 hence 
                 might 
               
               
                 against 
                 beside 
                 enough 
                 her 
                 mill 
               
               
                 all 
                 besides 
                 etc 
                 here 
                 mine 
               
               
                 almost 
                 between 
                 even 
                 hereafter 
                 more 
               
               
                 alone 
                 beyond 
                 ever 
                 hereby 
                 moreover 
               
               
                 along 
                 bill 
                 every 
                 herein 
                 most 
               
               
                 already 
                 both 
                 everyone 
                 hereupon 
                 mostly 
               
               
                 also 
                 bottom 
                 everything 
                 hers 
                 move 
               
               
                 although 
                 but 
                 everywhere 
                 herself 
                 much 
               
               
                 always 
                 call 
                 except 
                 him 
                 must 
               
               
                 am 
                 can 
                 features 
                 himself 
                 my 
               
               
                 among 
                 cannot 
                 few 
                 his 
                 myself 
               
               
                 amongst 
                 cant 
                 fifteen 
                 however 
                 name 
               
               
                 amoungst 
                 co 
                 fify 
                 hundred 
                 namely 
               
               
                 amount 
                 computer 
                 fill 
                 ie 
                 neither 
               
               
                 another 
                 con 
                 find 
                 if 
                 never 
               
               
                 any 
                 could 
                 first 
                 inc 
                 nevertheless 
               
               
                 anyhow 
                 couldnt 
                 five 
                 indeed 
                 next 
               
               
                 anyone 
                 cry 
                 former 
                 interest 
                 nine 
               
               
                 anything 
                 de 
                 formerly 
                 into 
                 no 
               
               
                 anyway 
                 describe 
                 forty 
                 its 
                 nobody 
               
               
                 anywhere 
                 detail 
                 found 
                 itself 
                 none 
               
               
                 around 
                 do 
                 four 
                 keep 
                 noone 
               
               
                 back 
                 done 
                 front 
                 last 
                 nor 
               
               
                 became 
                 down 
                 full 
                 latter 
                 not 
               
               
                 because 
                 due 
                 further 
                 latterly 
                 nothing 
               
               
                 become 
                 during 
                 get 
                 least 
                 now 
               
               
                 becomes 
                 each 
                 give 
                 less 
                 nowhere 
               
               
                 becoming 
                 eg 
                 go 
                 ltd 
                 off 
               
               
                 been 
                 eight 
                 had 
                 made 
                 often 
               
               
                 once 
                 ten 
                 whereas 
               
               
                 one 
                 than 
                 whereby 
               
               
                 only 
                 their 
                 wherein 
               
               
                 onto 
                 them 
                 whereupon 
               
               
                 other 
                 themselves 
                 wherever 
               
               
                 others 
                 then 
                 whether 
               
               
                 otherwise 
                 thence 
                 which 
               
               
                 our 
                 there 
                 while 
               
               
                 ours 
                 thereafter 
                 whither 
               
               
                 ourselves 
                 thereby 
                 whoever 
               
               
                 out 
                 therefore 
                 whole 
               
               
                 over 
                 therein 
                 whom 
               
               
                 own 
                 thereupon 
                 whose 
               
               
                 part 
                 these 
                 why 
               
               
                 per 
                 they 
                 within 
               
               
                 perhaps 
                 thick 
                 without 
               
               
                 please 
                 thin 
                 would 
               
               
                 put 
                 third 
                 yet 
               
               
                 rather 
                 those 
                 you 
               
               
                 re 
                 though 
                 your 
               
               
                 same 
                 three 
                 yours 
               
               
                 see 
                 through 
                 yourself 
               
               
                 seem 
                 throughout 
                 yourselves 
               
               
                 seemed 
                 thru 
               
               
                 seeming 
                 thus 
               
               
                 seems 
                 together 
               
               
                 serious 
                 too 
               
               
                 several 
                 top 
               
               
                 she 
                 toward 
               
               
                 should 
                 towards 
               
               
                 show 
                 twelve 
               
               
                 side 
                 twenty 
               
               
                 since 
                 two 
               
               
                 sincere 
                 un 
               
               
                 six 
                 under 
               
               
                 sixty 
                 until 
               
               
                 so 
                 up 
               
               
                 some 
                 upon 
               
               
                 somehow 
                 us 
               
               
                 someone 
                 very 
               
               
                 something 
                 via 
               
               
                 sometime 
                 we 
               
               
                 sometimes 
                 well 
               
               
                 somewhere 
                 were 
               
               
                 still 
                 whatever 
               
               
                 such 
                 whence 
               
               
                 system 
                 whenever 
               
               
                 take 
                 whereafter 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
         [0061]    A threshold is determined in step  308 , and all word combinations whose scores are less than this threshold are eliminated. Preferably, the threshold is given by the formula: 
         [0000]      20 log 2 (number of Page Excerpts) 
         [0062]    Although preferable, this formula is by no means limiting and other thresholds may be used to achieve the objects of the present invention. The remaining (over the threshold) word combinations will then contain words that are not one of the Search Words, but are contextually related to the Search Words (“Context Words”). These Context Words can then be used to re-query Advertisement Database  105 . In this embodiment, the Context Words are fed back to the ISE with and without the original Search Words, in effect creating a larger search query. The ISE can then redisplay advertisements in the same fashion as it does today. Although preferable, this step, too, is not limiting and the Context Words may be fed back to the ISE with the original Search Words in various combinations to achieve the objects of the present invention. 
         [0063]    Anyone with ordinary skill in the art will realize that this invention can be easily extended to include other forms of Advertising Criterion, which can use additional information from the Search Results, or additional information that can be derived from the Search Results. Several examples, which may be combined in many ways, include:
       1. The subject matter or topic of a Search Result. If an online database or algorithm is available and able to classify a Search Result as pertaining or being relevant to a general subject area or topic, the advertiser may wish to have his advertisement presented when a Search Result is classified as belonging to a particular subject area or topic.   2. Specific keywords that allow the advertiser to infer the goal of the User. For example, the appearance of the word ‘Purchase’ in the search results may imply that the User is ready to buy a particular product or service.   3. Linguistic entities (such as currency amounts, dates, times, names, etch).   4. The logical combination of other Advertising Criteria. In this example, the advertiser provides more than one Advertising Criterion, and may define whether all Advertising Criteria should match (AND relation), only one of them should match (OR relation), or a combination thereof.   5. The match frequency of an Advertising Criterion. Since the amount of information displayed in the Search Results may be large, it may be beneficial to require not only that they match an Advertising Criterion, but also that the Advertising Criterion matches a minimal amount of times. For example, the words ‘Plasma’ and ‘TV’ may be required to appear at least 5 times in the Search Results, or in at least 10% of the Search Results.   6. The match location of an Advertising Criterion. The Advertising Criterion may be required to match in the top search results, close to the Search Words or any combination thereof.       
 
         [0070]    7. All Advertising Criteria above may be combined to produce a match score. This match score would be a function of whether different Advertising Criteria matched and the strength of such matches. Naturally, different weights may be given to different Advertising Criteria. In this case, a minimal match score may be provided as the Advertising Criterion. 
         [0000]    The method of the present invention has the advantage that its Advertising Criteria are based on significantly more information (compared to just matching words in the User&#39;s search query). This allows showing advertisements that more accurately match the User&#39;s objective. 
         [0071]    Another advantage of the present invention is that it allows an advertiser to use a much smaller list of Advertising Criteria. For example, today a retailer of Plasma TV sets will normally enter all known model codes of Plasma TVs as search words, in case a user searches for one of them (e.g. “W4200HD”, “FWD42PV1” and “TH42PV500”). This is a complicated, time consuming and error-prone process which can easily result in the generation of an outdated keyword list. In the present invention, requiring the words ‘Plasma’ and ‘TV’ to appear in the search results would most likely cover most such cases, since those words are likely to appear alongside the model number in the Page Excerpts (e.g. “The Dell W4200HD 42” High Definition Plasma TV delivers a wide aspect, high-definition resolution giving you life-like picture quality”). 
         [0072]    While the invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, it will be appreciated that many variations, modifications and other applications of the invention may be made. 
         [0073]    Appendix 1, attached as an integral part of this specification, presents commented source code written in PHP for a preferred embodiment of the invention