Patent ID: 7990854

Claim:
A method performed by a data processing apparatus, the method comprising: determining an overall change in a performance metric of a content provisioning system that provides content to a plurality of content publishers, the overall change in the performance metric quantifying a change in an aggregate performance metric for content provided to the content publishers by the content provisioning system over a first time period relative to an aggregate performance metric for content provided to the content publishers by the system over a second time period; for each of the content publishers, determining a reference traffic value, wherein the reference traffic value for each publisher is a user traffic volume for the content publisher over each of the first time period and the second time period; determining, by the data processing apparatus for the performance metric of the content provisioning system, a reference traffic change over the first time period and the second time period, the reference traffic change being computed as a function of the reference traffic values and performance metric values for content provided to each of the content publishers, the reference traffic change quantifying a traffic-independent change in performance from the first time period to the second time period, the traffic-independent change in performance being a portion of the overall change in the performance metric that is attributable to a minimum traffic volume over one of the first time period and the second time period; and determining by the data processing apparatus, a traffic related change in the performance metric of the content provisioning system based on the reference traffic change and the overall change, the traffic related change in performance being a portion of the overall change in the performance metric that is attributable to a change in traffic over the first time period and the second time period.