Patent ID: 8055548

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for cataloging and reporting Internet merchant data comprising: using a computer processor to execute the steps of receiving at a data center a plurality of site activity messages regarding two or more seller sites and storing the site activity messages in computer readable memory; retrieving a standardized taxonomy schema with a node for each of two or more products; deriving from the plurality of site activity messages a sales metric for the two or more products; for a specific time period, aggregating the sales metric data for each of the two or more seller sites and the two or more products; and deriving a comparative report for the sales metric for the two or more seller sites, by reference to at least one of the two or more products in the standardized taxonomy schema, wherein the two or more seller sites in the comparative report are selected based upon similarities of a seller site profile vector calculated for each of the seller sites, wherein the seller site profile vector comprises a distribution of total merchant sales of the seller site for each of at least two nodes of the standardized taxonomy schema over the specific time period.