Patent ID: 8117308

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: logging network traffic at a search engine to generate a log of user interactions with the search engine; generating a network traffic model for a network traffic entity, the model based on actions in the log that relate to the network traffic entity, the model comprising forecasted time series data representative of a frequency of actions related to the network traffic entity predicted for each of a plurality of time intervals within a forecasted time segment; and identifying that an event of interest has occurred based on a comparison of (i) actual time series data derived from user interactions related to the network traffic entity, the user interactions occurring in the forecasted time segment, with (ii) the forecasted time series data, and wherein identifying that an event of interest has occurred further comprises: for each time interval within the forecasted time segment, comparing the actual value with the forecasted value corresponding to the time interval to determine whether the actual value exceeds a confidence interval of the forecasted value, and if so, designating the actual value as a representative of an occurrence of an event of interest.