Patent Document

RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application is a continuation application which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 from application Ser. No. 10/205,593 filed Jul. 23, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference. Application Ser. No. 10/205,593 claimed the benefit of U.S. provisional patent application 60/307,828 filed on Jul. 25, 2001 and Australian patent application PR 6535/01 filed on Jul. 23, 2001, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
     
    
     FIELD 
       [0002]    The described technology generally relates to link usage, and in particular to a system and method for determining and displaying the usage of links. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0003]    A web page typically contains references, or hyperlinks, to other parts of the page, other web pages and/or other resources. In particular, portal sites, which are web sites that constitute a convenient starting point for users of the Internet, provide web pages which include large numbers of links to other web pages and/or sites. Typically, some of these links are links to resources associated with sponsors of the portal site, and the operators of the site may generate revenue when users select those links. It is important for a web page designer to have some indication of the usage of those links, that is, the number of referrals or ‘clickthroughs’ generated by links on the web page. This information is not only important for determining the revenue generated from sponsored links, but is also important for web page design, as the link usage indicates the effectiveness of various kinds of links and the overall design of the web page. 
         [0004]    Currently, link usage is measured by analyzing web server log files, with the result that a count of the number of clickthroughs may be determined for each link over the time period since the previous log file analysis was performed. Thus, for example, a portal site may provide a web designer with a usage count for a given link, and this may be used to determine the revenue owed to the portal site provider from the advertiser associated with the link. However, this method provides a limited amount of information to the site provider and/or web designer. It is desired, therefore, to provide an improved method and system for measuring and displaying link usage, or at least a useful alternative to existing methods and systems. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0005]    One inventive aspect is a method for providing usage data for links in a resource, comprising maintaining link usage data for each of the links within the resource, and adjusting a copy of the resource to incorporate the link usage data associated with each link. 
         [0006]    Another aspect is a method of monitoring link usage, comprising accepting a request to monitor usage of links of a resource, accessing the resource and storing a copy of the resource, adjusting the links of the resource to refer to a link usage server, maintaining link usage data for the links of the resource using the link usage server, and providing, in response to a request, the copy of the resource with the link usage data collected for a period time, the link usage data being incorporated into the copy of the resource so as to be displayed adjacent the corresponding links of the resource. 
         [0007]    Another aspect is a method of obtaining link usage data is provided, comprising submitting a resource identifier to a link usage process, requesting link usage data, receiving the link usage data with a resource associated with the identifier, and displaying the resource adjusted to display the link usage data adjacent the links of the resource. 
         [0008]    Another aspect is a system having components for executing any of the above methods. 
         [0009]    Another aspect is software having code for executing any of the above methods. 
         [0010]    Another aspect is a link usage interface, comprising means for accessing a resource with link usage data, and means for generating a display of a resource with link usage data adjacent the links of the resource. 
         [0011]    Another aspect is a link data system, comprising means for maintaining link usage data for each of said links within the resource and means for adjusting a copy of the resource to incorporate the link usage data associated with each link. 
         [0012]    Another aspect is a link data system, comprising means for maintaining link usage data for each of said links within the resource, means for adjusting a copy of the resource to incorporate the link usage data associated with each link, and means for accessing a server accessible on the Internet. 
         [0013]    Another aspect is a computer-readable medium containing code for controlling a computer to perform a method of providing usage data for links in a resource, the method comprising maintaining link usage data for each of said links within the resource and adjusting a copy of the resource to incorporate the link usage data associated with each link. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0014]    Embodiments are hereinafter described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying figures. 
           [0015]      FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of a link usage system connected to a web site through a communications network. 
           [0016]      FIG. 2  is a block diagram of the software modules of the system. 
           [0017]      FIG. 3  is a screen dump of a web browser application displaying a web page. 
           [0018]      FIG. 4  is a screen dump of a web browser application displaying an embodiment of a web page link usage page generated by the system. 
           [0019]      FIGS. 5  is a flowchart of the link usage system software, according to one embodiment. 
           [0020]      FIG. 6  is a flowchart of the link usage system software, according to another embodiment. 
           [0021]      FIG. 7  is a flowchart of the link usage system software, according to yet another embodiment. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0022]    Embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein like numerals refer to like elements throughout. The terminology used in the description presented herein is not intended to be interpreted in any limited or restrictive manner, simply because it is being utilized in conjunction with a detailed description of certain specific embodiments. Furthermore, embodiments may include several novel features, no single one of which is solely responsible for its desirable attributes or which is essential to practicing embodiments herein described. 
         [0023]    As shown in  FIG. 1 , a link usage system includes a server  12  with associated disk storage  14 . The server  12  may be connected to a communications network  18 , such as the Internet, through a firewall  20 . The server  12  may be a standard computer system, such as an Intel®-based computer system running a Unix® operating system. The disk storage  14  may be a standard hard disk storage of the server  12 , and may be used to store a number of software code modules  22  to  32 , and standard databases  33 ,  34 ,  36 , such as Oracle® databases, as shown in  FIG. 2 . The web server module  22  may be a standard web server software module, such as Apache, available from www.apache.org, and allows the server  12  to act as a web server. The SQL module  26  may be a standard structured query language (SQL) interface and provides a means of interacting with the databases  34 ,  36 . The HTML/SQL module  24  may be an embedded scripting language support module that provides an interface between HTML and SQL, and may be a Microsoft® Active Server Pages (ASP) server module, or embedded Perl. The module  24  allows the web server module  22  to generate HTML code in response to SQL queries performed on the databases  34 ,  36 . The translation module  28  translates links in web pages to a modified form having links to enable link usage information to be stored in a link usage database  33  on the disk storage  14 . The data processing module  30  provides processes for aggregating the link usage database  33  and producing the databases  34 , 36  and summary data  38  from link usage data. 
         [0024]    The link usage system is connected via the communications network  18  to a system  10  for maintaining a web site, comprising a web server  50  and associated disk storage  52 , and a web page developer workstation  54 , which are connected by a standard network hub  56  and are connected to the communications network  18  through a firewall  58 . The web site system  10  may be operated or hosted by an Internet service provider (ISP). The link usage system executes a link usage process that monitors link usage or click through events associated with a web page of the web site, and displays link usage information on demand. In the described implementation, the link usage process is implemented by software modules of the server  12 . However, it will be apparent to the skilled technologist that the process may be executed by a variety of systems over a variety of locations connected by the network  18 , and may be executed, at least in part, by dedicated hardware circuits such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). 
         [0025]    The web site system  10  can be used to host a number of web sites, including a portal site for users of the Internet  18 . A portal page of the site generally provides a convenient starting point for users of the Internet  18 , and provides a large number of links to various services and advertisers. The portal page, as shown in  FIG. 3 , is developed and maintained by a web page developer using the workstation  54  of the web site system  10 . Typically, such a page is updated or otherwise modified on a regular basis, typically at least one per day, but perhaps even several times per day. 
         [0026]    Having link usage data for the page would assist the development process considerably. For the purposes of simplicity, use of the link usage system is described below for this portal page, but the system can be used with any resource having links that is accessible on the network  18 . When the developer produces a new or modified web page for the web site  10 , the developer is able to log into the server  12  of the link usage system using a web browser application to enter a username/password pair (step  100 ). After logging on to the link usage system, the developer uploads the new web page to the server  12  by selecting the file and clicking on a ‘submit’ button in a link usage page displayed by the web browser (step  102 ). The page is received by the server  12  and stored as a web page snapshot  42  on the disk storage  14  associated with the server  12  (step  104 ). However, the web page is also translated by the translation module  28  of the server  12  (step  106 ). The translation modifies links in the web page so that they refer to the server  12  of the link usage system, rather than the original link reference. For example, an original link of the web page might refer to: http://www.freeonline.com.au/main.shtml where www.freeonline.com.au is the domain name of the portal site. 
         [0027]    The translation module  28  modifies this link to be:
       http://www.refer.com/freeonline.com.au/main/XX_NB 04_XX_MM_XXXX_IM?ref=http://wvvw.freeonline.com.au/main.shtml
 
where www.refer.com is the domain name of the server  12  of the link usage system. The modified link includes an encoded key, in this example XX_NB — 04_XX_MM_XXXX_IM, which represents information about a particular link, including link classification information; for example, whether the link is associated with an image, and whether the link is associated with an affiliate of the web site. The key also includes index information for indicating the link&#39;s position in the page source. For example, the index information for the above link is given by the third component of the key, “04”, which indicates that the link is the fourth sequential link of the web page source. This indexing is used because a single web page may contain multiple links to the same URL.
       
 
         [0029]    The translated web page may be then published directly from the server  12  to the web server  50  of the web site system  10  (step  108 ). Alternatively, it may be saved on the workstation  54  by the developer, or published to the server  12  of the link usage system for public access, depending upon the desires of the web page developer and the policies of the provider of the web site. Once published, the modified web page may be accessed by users of the Internet  18 . 
         [0030]    A user of a networked computer  60  may access the modified web page by directing a web browser application executing on the computer  60  to the web server  50  via the Internet  18 . When the user selects one of the modified links, such as the modified link shown above, a request is generated to the server  12  of the link usage system (step  200 ). When the server  12  receives the request, it creates a record (step  202 ) in the link usage database  33 , recording the link details, http headers, and the time of the request. If the user is known to the link usage system, an identifier of the user is also stored in the database record. For example, if the web site system  10  is operated by an ISP, and the user is connected to the 
         [0031]    Internet  18  through an access system of the ISP, the ISP may associate an identifier with the user&#39;s request by generating a cookie for the user, or by maintaining an identifier with requests issued by the user&#39;s web browser, such as discussed in International Patent Application No. PCT/AU00/00418 and Australian Patent Application PQ9240/00, which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
         [0032]    After logging the link usage information in the link usage database  33  record, the server  12  then performs an HTTP redirect (step  204 ) to redirect the user&#39;s web browser to the resource indicated by argument to the link:. Thus, as far as the user of the computer  60  is concerned, selection of the modified link results in a request to the resource corresponding to the original link, in this case, http://www.freeonline.com.au/main.shtml. 
         [0033]    At regular and configurable intervals, the server  12  of the link usage system invokes the data processing module  30  to perform temporal aggregation of the link usage database  33  (step  206 ). For example, the server  12  may be configured to perform this step at intervals of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours. The temporal aggregation aggregates entries for each user, identified or anonymous, over time to produce a single entry for each link selected by a unique user in an aggregate database  34 . Each entry of the aggregate database  34  includes the local universal resource locator (URL) on the referral system corresponding to the link, information contained in the http header such as the foreign URL corresponding to the original link, the entry date, the number of times the link was selected by a particular user, and the unique identifier of that user. For example, the aggregate database  34  might include an entry of the form: www.refer.com/freeonline.com.au/main/XX_NB — 04_XX_MM_XXXX — 1M, www.freeonline.com.au/main.shtml. 2001-07-01, 2, 781598 
         [0034]    where the user with identifier  781598  has selected the particular link twice since the log file  33  was last processed. After entries in the log file  33  are processed, they are deleted. 
         [0035]    For each entry in the aggregate database  34 , the data processing module  30  also produces an expanded entry in a detail database  36 . The detail database  36  contains the same information as the aggregate database  34 , but the encoded classification information for the link is expanded so that each component of the encoded information may be given its own entry. For example, the encoded string XX_NB — 04XX_MM_XXXX_IM is expanded into its components XX, NB, 04, XX, MM, XXXX, and IM. This allows queries to be made against the detail database  36  for one or more of the components of the classification information. For example, a query could be performed for data corresponding to the third item of a particular pane of the web page, and/or any other particular classification of the link represented by the classification data. 
         [0036]    At any time, the web page developer using the workstation  54  of the web site may access the web server module  22  executing on the server  12  of the link usage system to view usage data of a web page. For example, using a secure HTTPS connection, the web page developer logs into the server  12  as described above (step  300 ), and selects a link usage information web page of the system web pages  32 . This page allows the web page developer to select a particular web page from a list, and to request summary data over a selectable period of time after the page has been submitted for link usage monitoring (step  302 ). For example, the web page developer may request link usage information on the portal web page of  FIG. 3 , accumulated over the past 24 hours. In response, the server  12  executes a summary process (step  304 ) of the data processing module  30 . The summary process aggregates usage information for each link to produce summary data  38  for the selected web page for the start and end times specified. The summary data  38  includes the encoded classification data string for each link of the page, together with the total number of link usage or clickthroughs recorded for that link, and the total number of unique users that have selected the link in the time period selected. The data processing module  30  then retrieves the stored version  42  of the portal web page, and produces (step  306 ) a modified version in which the usage of each link of the page is embedded within the page, using the index information of the encoded information for each link to determine the link with which to associate each usage count. The web page author may select whether the number displayed is the total usage, or the total number of unique users using the link. 
         [0037]    As shown in  FIG. 4 , an interface is provided back to the developer&#39;s browser (step  308 ) that embeds the requested usage data within the page in such a way that the appearance of the original web page is approximately maintained, but the usage of each link is displayed in parentheses together with and adjacent the link. The usage information is formatted in such a way as to distinguish it from the other information on the page; for example, by bright yellow highlighting and the use of a bold, distinctive typeface. This provides an immediate visual indication of the number of times that each link on the page has been selected. Because the usage information is stored together with the link, the usage data is intuitively associated with the corresponding link by a viewer of the displayed page. 
         [0038]    By presenting link usage data embedded within the web page itself, web page developers, advertisers, and others may rapidly determine the effectiveness of the links in the page for attracting users. This includes determining the effect of the nature and position of the link within the page, and whether the inclusion of graphics attracts users to a particular link. For example,  FIG. 4  shows that the “News &amp; Weather” link  44  in the bar  46  running across the page attracted 4939 clicks, whereas the link  48  referencing the identical resource and with an identical label in the left-hand panel  62  has attracted 16881 clicks over the same usage period, suggesting that most users ignore the bar  46  and will use the panel  62  instead. It is also important that the link usage system uses a stored version  42  of the original web page corresponding to the dates of the usage data, because the web page may be modified one or more times per day, and the usage information may not be relevant to a different version of the page. Consequently, the system maintains a stored version of each web page, and checks that the dates for which usage information is requested correspond to a single stored version of the page. However, the user is able to override this check is desired. This is useful for monitoring unchanged links in a page. 
         [0039]    In an alternative embodiment, the summary data  38  is generated on the basis of user profile data associated with the user identifier stored in the link usage database  33 , the aggregate database  34 , and the detail database  36 . Thus, for example, a link usage display of the form shown in  FIG. 4  is displayed for males between the ages of 31 and 40 with an income exceeding $50,000 per annum. Also, usage data for different demographics of users may be displayed together, next to the link, so as to provide a visual comparison. The profile data can be maintained using systems as described in International Patent Application PCT/AU00/00418 and Australian Patent Application PQ9240/00, which are hereby incorporated by reference. 
         [0040]    The foregoing description details certain embodiments. It will be appreciated, however, that no matter how detailed the foregoing appears in text, the described technology can be practiced in many ways. As is also stated above, it should be noted that the use of particular terminology when describing certain features or aspects of the invention should not be taken to imply that the terminology is being re-defined herein to be restricted to including any specific characteristics of the features or aspects of the invention with which that terminology is associated. The scope of the invention should therefore be construed in accordance with the appended claims and any equivalents thereof.

Technology Category: 5