Patent ID: 7295995

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of adaptively controlling the display of an item, the method comprising: receiving requests from users at a server, each of the requests corresponding to a particular context of a plurality of contexts in which the item is capable of being displayed in responses generated by the server; selectively including the item in responses to at least some of the requests such that the item is exposed to users in each of the plurality of contexts, said item being selectable by users, and being one of a plurality of items that are displayable in the responses to the requests; for each of the plurality of contexts, tracking both context-specific exposure of the item, and context-specific user activity associated with user selection of the item, resulting from selectively including the item in the responses; generating context-specific item weights for the item for each of the plurality of contexts, said context-specific item weights being dependent upon the tracked context-specific exposure and context-specific user activity in the respective contexts, wherein the context-specific item weights are not specific to a particular user; using at least the context-specific item weights to control a display of the item in the responses generated by said server in the respective contexts to which such item weights correspond; and updating the context-specific item weights to reflect tracked item exposure and user activity resulting from using the context-specific item weights to control the display of the item.