Patent ID: 7865397

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of organizing and displaying electronic advertisements comprising: assigning, in a computer, a plurality of electronic advertisements to a plurality of category nodes within a category hierarchy, wherein: said category hierarchy comprises a plurality of levels of said category nodes, said category nodes include a plurality of ancestor category nodes associated with a plurality of descendant category nodes and identified by a number of levels separating the ancestor category nodes from the associated descendant category nodes; assigning, in a computer, a plurality of available advertisement slots to said plurality of category nodes within said category hierarchy; and selecting, in a computer: for each electronic advertisement assigned to a particular category node, an available advertisement slot assigned to a matching particular category node, if said available advertising slot assigned to a matching particular category node exists, if said available advertising slot assigned to a matching particular category node does not exist, then selecting, in a computer, for the electronic advertisement assigned to a particular category node, an available advertising slot assigned to an ancestor category node associated with said particular category node, wherein the ancestor category node is separated from said matching particular category node by less than a predetermined number of levels.