Patent ID: 7035812

Claim:
A method of generating a search result list in response to a search request from a searcher, the method comprising: storing a plurality of search listings, each search listing being associated with a bid amount and a search term, the bid amount including a market value corresponding to a money amount chargeable to an account of an advertiser associated with the search listing; determining the market values of the respective bids by determining a product of a bid received from a respective advertiser and a probability that one or more bid events will occur, the one or more bid events including a click-through, including calculating a numerator as a ratio of an estimated number of times the one or more bid events will occur to an estimated number of times the one or more bid events could occur within a specified time period, calculating a denominator representing the standard click-through rate for listings of the average ranking, over the same specified period of time, of the identified search listing corresponding to the bid, and calculating the probability as the ratio of the numerator to the denominator; receiving a search request from the searcher; identifying search listings having search terms generating a match with the received search request; ordering the identified search listings in a search result list according to values of the respective bid amounts of the identified search listings; detecting a clickthrough by the searcher of one of the ordered search listings; and in response to the clickthrough, charging the account of the advertiser associated with the one search listing by the bid amount.