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June 10, 2008
Google Maps Adds Richer Data to SearchAdding richer data to search results is a bit of a trend, and now Google Maps is jumping on the bandwagon. The Google LatLong blog has announced the addition of richer data to its search results. The data includes photos, reviews and a "more info" link that opens an "info window" that features more data.
Below is a screenshot of a search for pizza in Raleigh, NC. If you have a local business, you'll want to add your company to the Google Maps Local Business Center in order to show up in the results.
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
January 21, 2008
AT&T iPhone Google Deal Pits Apple Against BlackberryPitting Apple against Blackberry, AT&T will offer a corporate plan for iPhone users, Engadget reported today.
The iPhone Google AT&T alliance made news at MacWorld with the launch of new Google apps and features for the iPhone.
Today's announcement, though, may be the biggest search engine industry news to come out of MacWorld. If the iPhone succeeds in dislodging Blackberry from the enterprise -- and Google maintains its iPhone-Apple ties -- then Google's share of local mobile searches could increase significantly over the next two years.
Google doesn't enjoy the same dominance in local mobile search as in desktop search. Google's strategic business development deals a couple years ago bundled Google desktop search with Dell computers and made Google the default home page on the computer's pre-installed browser.
Engadget blogger Thomas Ricker notes the move by AT&T iPhone comes in lieu of a 3G announcement by Apple. 3G, with service at 5-10 Mb per second, would make wide-area wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data available in mobile.
With faster speeds and more bandwidth, 3G would likely increase the total volume of local mobile searches.
Increasing the number of searches is the only win-win for the search industry. Slicing and dicing search inventory increases the long tail of searches. With Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask battling for small gains against Google's dominant share of searches, local mobile search -- and the enterprise -- may be the final frontier.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:06 PM | Permalink
December 4, 2007
Google Launches Local PlusBoxGoogle has begun using its new PlusBox feature in local search results. The Local PlusBox appears as a plus sign and hotlink to a Google Map appearing after an AdWords ad in the top position at the top of the page.
When clicked, the PlusBox will expand right in the search results page, showing a map, address, driving instructions, and phone number, in addition to the location name that appears beneath the last line of ad.
The Local PlusBox will only appear on locally targeted ads. Advertisers will not be charged for clicks on the Local PlusBox, map, or driving instructions; they will only pay for clicks on their local business ad that lead to their landing page.
The Local PlusBox is being rolled out to AdWords accounts in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:44 PM | Permalink
October 12, 2007
Local Search and Universal SearchRecently I was trying some searches out on Google, and I decided to try out "San Francisco Pizza". It was neat, because it came back with a nice Google map at the top of the results, as follows:
So I then moved on to the next search, "Boston Pizza". The results were quite different:
During my recent visit to the Googleplex, I spoke to Carter Maslan, the Director of Product Management, for Local about this. He indicated that there are still some triggering issues with the integration with Universal Search. I believe this refers to the underlying relevance algorithm in Universal Search that weighs the relevance of search results from several vertical search properties, and then integrates those into the web search results.
For some reason the Boston local search results don't pass muster in this analysis. However, Carter also indicated that this is something that Google is working on, and you can expect to see a far greater penetration of web search results by Local search in the future.
Posted by Eric Enge at 10:10 AM | Permalink
May 21, 2007
Google Adds Neighborhood SearchGoogle has added a neighborhood search capability for 50 U.S. cities, so a user can search for things like bagels upper east side new york or restaurants, over the rhine, cincinnati on Google Maps.
As Greg Sterling points out, in this case Google is playing catch-up with sites like Ask.com (which launched this in December with its AskCity local search tool, as well as Trulia and Yelp. Yahoo has defined neighborhoods in large cities for some time as well.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:33 AM | Permalink
May 10, 2007
Google Launches New "Geo" BlogGoogle has started a new blog focusing on Google Earth, Maps, Local and APIs. Lat Long Blog will chronicle Google's efforts to build the "geoweb," according to John Hanke, director of Google Earth & Maps.
I don't think that there is agreement on what the geoweb is, but I think there is a lot of enthusiasm and energy across many fronts to make it happen. I expect the "it" will evolve substantially over the next few months and years as we (the geo ecosystem on the web) collectively figure out how "earth browsers," embedded maps, local search, geo-tagged photos, blogs, the traditional GIS world, wikis, and other user-generated geo content all interrelate.Google's geo products and services include the My Maps custom mapping features of Google Maps, as well as geo searches, which surface user-created geographic information in local searches in Google Maps and Google Earth. The blog cites two examples of geo searches: windsurfing near San Francisco and Jerry Seinfeld in NY.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:29 AM | Permalink
March 14, 2007
The Webification of SMBsThe recent enhancements to Google's Local Business Center is the latest example of companies engaging in what Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland calls the "Webification" of small and mid-sized businesses.
As he explains in today's SearchDay, drawing business owners online with the promise of free and easy Web presence is the first step in getting them to become advertisers or subscribers to other online services.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:05 PM | Permalink
December 26, 2006
Vertical Strategies in Local SearchJust before the holiday weekend, Bill Slawski had an interesting post at his SEO by the Sea blog. The qualities of online search make it a natural fit for local he contends. This can be seen by the degree to which local has been emphasized within Google (Google Local), Yahoo! (Yahoo! Local), Microsoft (Windows Live Local), and most recently, Ask (AskCity).
But the real opportunity in Local could be in vertical segmentation, he argues. Increased verticalization has in fact gained steam over the past year with the introduction and development of many successful vertical destinations such as Zillow and Trulia in Real estate and Oodle and LiveDeal in classifieds. This “verticalization” of Local Search was a pervasive theme at the Kelsey Group’s ILM:06 show last month.
Some of the advantages of a vertical search strategy include a refined corpus of data which increases the likelihood of relevant results within a category that a user is presumably interested in (going by their presence on the site in the first place). This increased relevance can lead to higher click through rates and higher intent to buy.
Some local shopping destinations such as NearbyNow enjoy these advantages because someone searching for “sunglasses” in their local area is more likely to be looking to find a place to buy them. Compare this to a Google search where the user’s intent isn’t as easily discernable (they could be in a research stage, many steps before a purchase decision and, ultimately, a transaction).
So vertical search can be valuable, but it also doesn’t come without its own set of challenges. Use cases are different across vertical categories so different rules and interfaces should be applied for optimal experiences. This challenge is particularly relevant to the local products of search giants mentioned above. These local search offerings are all grounded in a map interface, however a map isn’t as relevant in some categories as others.
A map that plots the locations of local landscapers isn’t as valuable as one that plots local movie theaters (landscapers come to you). However the map interface dominates search results in both of these categories (and all others) in Google Local, Yahoo Local, et al.. For landscapers, plumbers, roofers and other service categories, user reviews or credentials might represent a better use of this space.
Still, there are many challenges in creating these rules and varying interfaces across vertical categories. The same challenge faces internet yellow pages companies such as yellowpages.com. Smaller vertical players can meanwhile create experiences that are more customized to the use case of that category, but they can’t scale to the degree that a Google or a Yahoo! can.
Perhaps the best of both worlds is to build a “house of brands” strategy that brings together many individual vertical brands under one roof. The Classified Ventures family of online classified destinations (cars.com, apartments.com, HomeGain) has done this to some degree, but many believe the slow moving nature of their newspaper owners (Belo, Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune and Washington Post) has held this consortia back from reaching its potential. It’s still an interesting model and one to watch – and possibly model after - in the coming year.
Posted by Mike Boland at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google Maps Offers Speech-Friendly AlternativesOver at the Google blog, Googler T.V. Raman shares useful tips as a technologist who is visually impaired.
For blind searchers and others who use spoken outputs, screenreaders or a Braille display, the visual display that is returned from a Google Maps or Google Local search is often translated poorly in such readers.
So Google has added a simple, alternative view into Google Maps for visually impaired users, with the Textual Maps UI. It's also extremely useful for any searcher using a non-graphical display and can quickly look up a location by typing a simple English query of the form of a start address to end address.
Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 2:31 PM | Permalink
December 22, 2006
Bringing Small Businesses OnlineTheStreet.com has an article on the growing trend of small businesses advertising themselves on Craigslist. As opposed to individuals buying and selling merchandise, this involves local businesses creating posts that list business information or possibly product or inventory info.
Essentially, this utilizes Craigslist as a place to have a free landing page. But this kind of advertising precariously places such pages where they can be bounced around as newer posts push them down chronological listings.
More effective for some small businesses have been free landing page and microsite offerings that have grown in number over the past year, as the name of the game for many search engine marketers will be to get more small businesses online.
This comes with the thought that a significant chunk of revenue growth for search engine marketers will come from new business - those local and small businesses that have thus far steered clear of online marketing because they aren't inclined to do it, or they simply don't have websites. Bringing a business online with free development and hosting tools is thought to hook them, and to develop early loyalties as a place to also do their online marketing.
Enter the free landing page development and hosting offerings. Yahoo! has done this for a while with its free local listings product, and Google came out with Page Creator in February which it recently upgraded with its new "hosted business pages" tool. Companies that have introduced similar solutions include vFlyer and Affinity Internet.
Many of the small businesses in this boat are service businesses that traditionally advertise in the yellow pages. In many cases these businesses are better equipped to handle a phone call than a click, which can be an abstract concept to some. A recent study done by Nielsen//NetRaings and WebVisible suggest as much.
So in addition to more free website development and hosting services, we could see more click-to-call functionality in paid search. In the last month alone, we've seen this from Google and LiveDeal. Look for more to emerge throughout '07.
Posted by Mike Boland at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 20, 2006
Google Testing Map Quick Link Under Search ResultsThreadwatch screen captured Google testing out placing a link to Google maps results directly below the search result's description and above the url of that result. It is a limited test, and I am not able to reproduce it, but Matt Cutts of Google has confirmed this as a real test. As long as it is useful to the query and the searcher, I am happy with it also.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:57 AM | Permalink
September 13, 2006
Intuit & Google Announce Major Local Search Marketing PartnershipIn a development with potentially sweeping implications for local search and small business online marketing, Intuit has announced a partnership with Google that integrates AdWords campaign management and other Google-related features directly into the workflow of QuickBooks, the company's bestselling software package for small business. QuickBooks has 3.7 million active small business customers. A similar set of capabilities is contemplated for a future release of Intuit's other bestselling software program Quicken.
Simultaneously Intuit announced the acquisition of SME marketing firm StepUp. (Reuters is reporting that the acquisition price was $60 million.) StepUp has been doing for local retailers what local SEM/SEO firms like LocalLaunch, WebVisible and ReachLocal are doing (with partners) for local service businesses – helping them establish a web presence and pushing their listings and content out to consumer destinations where they could be found online. (I'll go into this aspect of the deal and its significance below.)
The Intuit-Google partnership and the QuickBooks implementation were quickly put together for the 2007 release of QuickBooks, which hits the shelves later this month. Both companies see their relationship as a long-term partnership with significant mutual benefits. Intuit CEO Steve Bennett and Google CEO Eric Schmidt are holding a conference call later today to explain the relationship in further detail.
Here are the details of the QuickBooks integration as I understand them:
AdWords Starter Edition Integration: Small businesses using QuickBooks will have the ability to sign up for AdWords and manage their campaigns directly within the QuickBooks workflow environment. They won't need to go to Google to do so; Google will receive a feed directly from within QuickBooks. As an incentive to advertise, new AdWords users will receive a $50 discount. Beyond FAQs and standard information about AdWords, right now there doesn't appear to be any "hand holding" or other special support. However I was told that additional features and support would come in future implementations. Intuit told me that they would be helping Google better understand and meet the needs of small business advertisers. One-Click Listing on Google Maps: SME data contained within QuickBooks will pre-populate a set of fields to help SMEs upload their contact information and other details, which they have the ability to edit, in what amounts to one click to Google Maps. They will be enticed to do so with a message along these lines: "Get your business listed on Google for free." Inventory/Product Feed to Google: StepUp has been working with Google to provide local retailer inventory information to Froogle. StepUp has about 5,000 small business customers. Being acquired by Intuit and integrated into QuickBooks will give the company overnight access to literally millions of small retailers and their inventory data. About half of QuickBooks' 3.7 million customers use the software for inventory management.
StepUp's application is similarly integrated into the new, 2007 version of QuickBooks. What this enables is a product/inventory data feed directly to Google/Froogle. As part of the install process of QuickBooks 2007 retailers will be given the option to list all their products on Google.
StepUp works with other distributors (e.g., SuperPages) and intends to continue doing so. "Our mission is to help retailers be found wherever consumers are," StepUp CEO Kendall Fargo told me in response to my question about whether the Intuit acquisition and Intuit-Google partnership would mean any changes in the company's roadmap or objectives. Beyond the additional reach this gives them, he said "no" and also expressed a desire to work with other partners (e.g., MSN, Yahoo!, etc.)
Google Desktop Integration: Finally the Google Desktop search application is being integrated into QuickBooks so that users can search their computers and the data in QuickBooks with the Google Desktop client.
Implications re Small Business Advertisers:
Google has been working directly and indirectly with channel partners to acquire small business advertisers. Many of those partners are yellow pages publishers. But consider that the U.S. yellow pages industry has approximately 3.2 million advertisers in total. As mentioned, QuickBooks has 3.7 million active users and Quicken another 3 million (not all of whom are small businesses obviously). But you get the idea: Instantly Google gets access – through a trusted third party (Intuit) -- to a huge installed base of potential advertisers.
The direct integration of AdWords into the QuickBooks workflow may not be as effective as a local sales rep. knocking on a door or making a phone call, but it gets close and it's considerably more efficient in many respects. And, as mentioned, Intuit will be helping Google to make AdWords more "SME friendly" going forward.
This is a privileged position with a massive SME aggregator that currently Google's competitors don't enjoy on a comparable scale.
Implications re the Consumer Experience:
The StepUp facilitated product inventory information, which will likely be more complete and accurate than almost anything else in the market, will make Froogle (or whatever it eventually becomes) a differentiated source of local product information ("Where can I buy it today?"). Intuit/StepUp has said it will work and hopes to work with others in providing this same information. So Froogle's competitors could potentially benefit from this feed if they build the required APIs.
The Google Maps integration will similarly provide (assuming that merchants opt for this) lots of accurate local content that otherwise wouldn't be available or might be outdated.
Of course it remains to be seen how all this plays out, but this is a major win for Google and a big value-add for Intuit in its relationship with small businesses.
Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:59 PM | Permalink
August 31, 2006
Tips On Getting Listed In Local Search ResultsPatricia Hursh wrote a ClickZ column named Four Steps Every Business Can Take to Improve Local Search Results. The article goes over the what, why and how on Local Search. In short, how does one get included in the local results you see search engines providing? She recommends that you (1) update your business listings at Amacai, infoUSA, and Acxiom, (2) submit your site to local engines such as Google Local, MSN Local, Yahoo Local, Ask Local, and TrueLocal, (3) update your Internet Yellow Page listings at YellowPages.com, Verizon SuperPages, and SwitchBoard.com, and (4) make sure to have your address clearly listed throughout your web site.
Don't have time to do all of that, you can pay one of these two companies to do it for you; Relevant Ads or RegisterLocal. Also, if you are interested in understanding who local search engine powers who, see Bruce Clay's and TrueLocal's PDF chart.
Postscript Barry: Although Amacai is related to another sister company, Localeze, it does not actually manage local search content. Localeze, a completely separate company (Amacai is its subsidiary), manages local search content for local merchants.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:04 AM | Permalink
August 15, 2006
Google Maps Gets CouponsHmm? How do you prove to local merchants who lack tracking software or even web sites that search converts? Coupons! That's right, the conversion tracking tool that requires no internet connection, cookies or software has come to Google Maps.
Google provides more information on how merchants can get going with coupons at its local business center here (for those logged in with a Google Account). They're available for free to anyone with a local business listing on Google Maps.
How do you get those free local listing? Easy. If you're logged into Google, provide your real-world location information here (for the US, UK, Canada, China & Japan). Then a letter will get sent to that location with a PIN to verify your listing. Once that's added, you can assign coupons to your locations.
To kick things off, Google's already seeded the maps with coupons through a partnership with Valpak, as described more in the press release below. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any live and in the wild. It would have been nice if there was a feature added to Google Maps to search and indicate you want to see only businesses offering coupons. Heck, I don't even see consumer-facing help information about coupons offered yet at Google Maps.
Here are some details from press stories:
- Google to distribute discount coupons on mapping service: From the San Jose Mercury News, it provides a bit more detail about the Valpak partnership.
- Google Maps offers discount coupons for US stores: From Reuters, some details on how this might challenge coupon rivals such as CoolSavings. I'd say it's not going to be much of a challenge unless a feature to easily find coupons at Google is offered. Hunt-and-hope browsing for them isn't going to cut it.
- New at Google: Local Coupons: From the New York Times, has some quotes from Google on how this is intended to help small businesses who might lack web sites.
And here's the Google press release:
Print and Save – Coupons on Google Maps
Today, Google announced printable online coupons on Google Maps. When searching for local information, discount coupons from businesses are now displayed on Google Maps search results and business listing pages. These coupons can be printed out directly from a computer and redeemed at a physical store location of a neighborhood or local business. For users of Google Maps, coupons provide additional relevant business information and ultimately contribute to a better local search experience. For businesses, coupons provide another way to reach customers online.
Google has partnered with Valpak, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America, to provide coupons from current Valpak advertisers on Google Maps. These coupons include savings from local businesses throughout the United States including dry cleaners, dentists, vets, pizza places, car washes, oil changes, handymen and home remodelers. New coupons from Valpak advertisers are added on a nightly basis to ensure the most recent offers are available immediately to consumers.
Coupons are available in Google Maps at no cost to businesses and consumers. Businesses simply need to log into the Local Business Center at Google Maps to enter in coupon information www.google.com/local/add. In addition, businesses can easily add or update their local business listings on Google Maps from the Local Business Center. Once coupon information is entered, the coupon is displayed on Google Maps within hours. Businesses do not need a web site to participate.
"We're very pleased to be the launch partner with Google to offer Valpak's print-at-home online coupons to more consumers and to give Valpak merchants valuable enhanced distribution tied to their existing listing on Google Maps." said Todd Leiser, Vice President and General Manager for Valpak.com, Valpak's online coupon portal. "Valpak's blue envelope has been a North American institution for nearly 40 years and has the type of real consumer value that is perfect to support Google's mission statement of organizing the world's information".
In addition, Google AdWords advertisers can use coupons through the Local Business Center. In the coming months, AdWords advertisers will be able to drive traffic to their coupons on Google Maps. By driving additional traffic to their coupons the advertiser can reach more customers.
To find a coupon for a business in your neighborhood please visit www.maps.google.com. For businesses who want to try coupons on Google Maps please visit www.google.com/local/add.
Postscript: Mike Buckley's gotten one of the ads going and describes the process over here. The coupons don't actually appear in the pop-up box on the map, as I thought. Instead, try this search. Look to the left-hand side, at the textual listings. See the word "Coupons >>" under each listing. Click on one like this, and you'll see how coupons are listed for display.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:36 AM | Permalink
August 10, 2006
Custom Map Icons Added For Google Local Business AdsThe Google Blog announced a new feature for Google Local business ads, named "custom map icons." Basically, for the pinpoints found in Google Local/Maps, you can customize that pinpoint with a favicon like image. You can see an example of this implemented and more details on how it works at the Google Blog.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:27 PM | Permalink
July 11, 2006
New Search Patent Applications: July 11, 2006 - Google Patent Filings by the DozenTwelve Google patent applications where published this past week, including seven that focus upon geographical information and local search.
(1) How good a match ads may be to the content on pages they are served upon through a program like Adsense. (2) A process for improving the targeting of ads. (3) Real time transportation data for travelers. (4) An exploration of ad layouts. (5) An automated advertising approval process. (6) Reasons for location-based businesses to use local area advertising, including an improved pay-per-call process.
(7) How the most authoritative local search results are identified. (8) The use of visual gap segmentation to separate information on different parts of pages, with implications beyond local search. (9) Ties business locations with regional areas. (10) A method for reducing ambiguity in geographic location. (11) Deciding whether regular or local results might be shown when at least one query term might be geographical in nature. (12) Assigning confidence scores between business identity and location information on a page.
Microsoft adds two more, on the validity of links, and on the validity of anchor text in links. They have very similar names, and cover topics that are related, but the processes involved are very different.
This first patent filing discusses some of the factors that the search engine may look at to determine whether or not an ad served on a page a good match for that page and possibly the category that page may be within, including some user behavior information such as whether or not ads are selected, how long a viewer remains on a page, and if a conversion is made.
Associating features with entities, such as categories of web page documents, and/or weighting such features Inventors: Ross Koningstein, Stephen Lawrence, and Valentin Spitkovsky US Patent Application 20060149710 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Features that may be used to represent relevance information (e.g., properties, characteristics, etc.) of an entity, such as a document or concept for example, may be associated with the document by accepting an identifier that identifies a document; obtaining search query information (and/or other serving parameter information) related to the document using the document identifier, determining features using the obtained query information (and/or other serving parameter information), and associating the features determined with the document. Weights of such features may be similarly determined. The weights may be determined using scores. The scores may be a function of one or more of whether the document was selected, a user dwell time on a selected document, whether or not a conversion occurred with respect to the document, etc. The document may be a Web page. The features may be n-grams. The relevance information of the document may be used to target the serving of advertisements with the document.The process detailed in the next patent application aims at improving the relevancy of ads, and helping in suggesting targeted terms by allowing an advertiser to submit broad targeting information. While serving ads using that information, the search engine would log and collect search query terms, and possibly concepts and concept keywords, associated with the serving of the ad, and suggest candidate targeting keywords or phrases to the advertiser from those logs.
Suggesting and/or providing targeting information for advertisements Inventors: Ross Koningstein US Patent Application 20060149625 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query terms (or some other information, such as concepts, concept keywords, etc.) associated with the serving of the ad, and (iv) generating one or more candidate targeting keywords or phrases for the ad using the logged search query terms. At least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be provided as targeting information for the ad. Alternatively, at least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be presented to the advertiser. Advertiser input with respect to the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) presented may then be accepted. Zero or more of the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) may be provided as targeting information for the ad, in accordance with the accepted advertiser input. Cost information (e.g., average cost per selection, average cost per conversion, total costs, etc.) may be presented in association with the candidate targeting information.Traffic assistance similar to that provided by Google acquisition Zipdash is the focus of the next document, and Zipdash is named as a service that would use this process. Some integration of local search and advertising is hinted at in the filing.
Transportation routing Inventors: Henry Rowley, and Shumeet Baluja US Patent Application 20060149461 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 31, 2004
Abstract
A computer-implemented method of providing personalized route information involves gathering a plurality of past location indicators over time for a wireless client device, determining a future driving objective using the plurality of previously-gathered location indicators, obtaining real-time traffic data for an area proximate to the determined driving objective, and generating a suggested route for the driving objective using the near real-time traffic data.How are the layouts of ads best optimized? What size fonts are used, and how many ads are displayed on pages? Google explores some of those concepts, and notes that the presentation ideas for ads in the following document also may be used to present news items on search results pages.
Ad rendering parameters, such as size, style, and/or layout, of online ads Inventors: Shumeet Baluja, Vibhu Mittal, and Mehran Sahami US Patent Application 20060149622 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for at least one ad from the set of two or more ads using the accepted ad information. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may use accepted ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering constraints may include space available for rendering the ads, a footprint available for rendering the ads, and/or a maximum number of ads permitted to be rendered. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may include maximizing a value associated with serving at least one ad from the set of two or more ads with ad rendering parameters subject to the ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering parameters may include sizes of the served ads, and/or a layout of the served ads.Automating the approval process for paid ads could benefit Google and advertisers. What would such an approval process entail? The next document identifies a number of issues involved in approving an ad, and in followups on advertisements. It also describes a whitelist for exceptions to some of the policies that may keep ads from being approved.
Advertisement approval Inventors: Gregory Joseph Badros, Robert J. Stets, and Lucy Zhang US Patent Application 20060149623 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
An advertisement for use with an online ad serving system may be automatically checked for compliance with one or more policies of the online ad serving system. If the advertisement is approved, then it is allowed by be served by the ad serving system. Follow up checks of the advertisement may be scheduled. One follow up check may be to test a landing page of the advertisement for compliance with policies. If the advertisement is not approved, hints for making the ad comply with one or more violated policies may be provided to an advertiser associated with the ad, and/or an ad serving system customer service representative. Determining whether or not to approve the advertisement may include determining violations of one or more policies by the advertisement, and, for each of the violations, determining whether or not to exempt the violation.
Google Local Patent Applications
The following patent applications primarily look at local search, though some of the processes described within them may have broader reaching implications, such as the one on visual segmentation of information on pages.
Businesses associated with a specific location often don't use paid search as part of their advertising strategy. This first patent application thoughtfully goes into some of the reasons why, and explores ways to make it a more attractive medium, including expanded pay-per-call functionality, as well as providing information such as business hours and types of payment accepted.
Generating and/or serving local area advertisements, such as advertisements for devices with call functionality Inventors: Shumeet Baluja and Henry A. Rowley US Patent Application 20060149624 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Sets of local, (e.g., online) ads may be generated by obtaining sets of information about (e.g., local) establishments, each set including a business address information and/or a telephone number, (b) determining, for each of the sets, a location using at least one of at least a portion of the business address information and at least a portion of the telephone number, and (c) generating, for each of the sets, an ad that includes targeting information that targets the serving of the ad to queries related to the determined location. A query, including information about a location of a client device, may be accepted and at least one of the generated ads that includes targeting information that targets the location of the client device may be determined.How does a local search determine which document is the most relevant and authoritative one to return at the top of a local search list? A number of factors are considered in this next set of described processes.
Authoritative document identification Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Geeta Chaudhry US Patent Application 20060149800 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system determines documents that are associated with a location, identifies a group of signals associated with each of the documents, and determines authoritativeness of the documents for the location based on the signals.If you are familiar with Microsoft's research on VIPS: a VIsion based Page Segmentation Algorithm, some of the ideas in the next document may sound a little familiar. Imagine a page that includes restaurant reviews for a number of restaurants in a city neighborhood. Might the information from that page be segmented, so that reviews for each of the restaurants can be included in results for the right restaurants in a local search? This visual gap approach might be helpful in that endeavor.
The document also notes that this process might be helpful in determining what an image is about, and in indexing them. It also mentions that it could help the search engine understand what the different parts of a page are, and how much value they have (for instance, distinqusihing between content and navigation.)
Document segmentation based on visual gaps Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149775 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A document may be segmented based on a visual model of the document. The visual model is determined according to an amount of visual white space or gaps that are in the document. In one implementation, the visual model is used to identify a hierarchical structure of the document, which may then be used to segment the document.While a search engine may be able to determine where a business related to a page is located, it may want to associate that location with a geographical region. Something like a Hierarchical Triangular Mesh may be used to help in making that association.
Indexing documents according to geographical relevance Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149774 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A local search engine efficiently indexes documents relevant to a geographical area by indexing, for each document, multiple location identifiers that collectively define an aggregate geographic region. When creating the index, the search engine may determine a set of geographical areas surrounding a geographical area relevant to a document and associate references to the set of geographical areas with the document index.It's not always clear what the geographic location of a webpage is, based upon information presented on individual pages, though sometimes that type of information exists on the pages. The process displayed in this next filing tries to take information that may be spread out on a page, and tie it together to identify a location.
Classification of ambiguous geographic references Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149742 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A location classifier generates location information based on textual strings in input text. The location information defines potential geographical relevance of the input text. In determining the location information, the location classifier may receive at least one geo-relevance profile associated with at least one string in the input text, obtain a combined geo-relevance profile for the document from the at least one geo-relevance profile, and determine geographical relevance of the input text based on the combined geo-relevance profile.Imagine if a search engine could serve either regular web search results or local results. Some search queries could be ambiguous, and may make it difficult to determine whether to serve local search information or general web search results. The inventors of the next document provide some ideas that may reduce some of that ambiguity a little.
Location extraction Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Lawrence Elias Greenfield US Patent Application 20060149734 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system receives a search query that includes a set of search terms, determines whether at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of a geographic area, and determines whether the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area when at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of the geographic area. The system performs a local search, based on one or more of the search terms, to identify documents associated with the geographic area when the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area.The title of this patent application, and the previous one are so similar, that I was concerned they might be duplicates when I uncovered them. The one above attempts to "extract" location information from a query. This next one attempts to "extract" location information from pages being indexed, with confidence scores indicating how likely it is that business information on a page is associated with an address on the same page.
Local item extraction Inventors: Michael Dennis Riley US Patent Application 20060149565 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system identifies a document that includes an address and locates business information in the document. The system assigns a confidence score to the business information, where the confidence score relates to a probability that the business information is associated with the address. The system determines whether to associate the business information with the address based on the assigned confidence score.Microsoft
The titles of two Microsoft patent applications are very similar, but the processes described aren't. The first one looks at anchor text in links, and the titles to pages those links point to, to see if the anchor text is accurate. The second one looks at links on pages, using the Document Object Model, and tries to determine if they are valid links while simulating the experience of a user of the page viewing it with a browser. This may help a search engine understand dynamic html menus, and view links that may otherwise be unavailable to a search engine crawler.
Methods and apparatus for the evaluation of aspects of a web page Inventors: Michael A. Starbird Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060150076 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Methods and apparatus are provided for evaluating the extent to which link text, representing a hypertext link on a web page, corresponds to a web page referenced by the link. In one embodiment, the link text may be compared to the title of a web page referenced by the link, such as by parsing the link text and page title into individual tokens and comparing the tokens. The extent to which the link text and the page title correspond may be expressed as a percentage of tokens which match. A graphical user interface (GUI) may be provided which presents a visual indication when a minimum percentage of tokens do not match.Methods and apparatus for evaluating aspects of a web page Inventors: Ryan Farber Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060150111 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
An automated method is provided for evaluating the validity of links included in a web page. The web page may contain commands, such as dynamic HTML or other embedded commands, which are configured for execution upon the occurrence of an event, such as a provision of input by a user. According to one embodiment, the method includes causing the links to be generated by simulating the occurrence of the event. Upon the generation of the links, their validity may be determined, and a report may be produced which indicates whether the links are valid.My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)
There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.
Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.
Posted by Bill Slawski at 8:55 PM | Permalink
New Search Patent Applications: July 11, 2006 - Google Patent Filings by the DozenTwelve Google patent applications where published this past week, including seven that focus upon geographical information and local search.
(1) How good a match ads may be to the content on pages they are served upon through a program like Adsense. (2) A process for improving the targeting of ads. (3) Real time transportation data for travelers. (4) An exploration of ad layouts. (5) An automated advertising approval process. (6) Reasons for location-based businesses to use local area advertising, including an improved pay-per-call process.
(7) How the most authoritative local search results are identified. (8) The use of visual gap segmentation to separate information on different parts of pages, with implications beyond local search. (9) Ties business locations with regional areas. (10) A method for reducing ambiguity in geographic location. (11) Deciding whether regular or local results might be shown when at least one query term might be geographical in nature. (12) Assigning confidence scores between business identity and location information on a page.
Microsoft adds two more, on the validity of links, and on the validity of anchor text in links. They have very similar names, and cover topics that are related, but the processes involved are very different.
This first patent filing discusses some of the factors that the search engine may look at to determine whether or not an ad served on a page a good match for that page and possibly the category that page may be within, including some user behavior information such as whether or not ads are selected, how long a viewer remains on a page, and if a conversion is made.
Associating features with entities, such as categories of web page documents, and/or weighting such features Inventors: Ross Koningstein, Stephen Lawrence, and Valentin Spitkovsky US Patent Application 20060149710 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Features that may be used to represent relevance information (e.g., properties, characteristics, etc.) of an entity, such as a document or concept for example, may be associated with the document by accepting an identifier that identifies a document; obtaining search query information (and/or other serving parameter information) related to the document using the document identifier, determining features using the obtained query information (and/or other serving parameter information), and associating the features determined with the document. Weights of such features may be similarly determined. The weights may be determined using scores. The scores may be a function of one or more of whether the document was selected, a user dwell time on a selected document, whether or not a conversion occurred with respect to the document, etc. The document may be a Web page. The features may be n-grams. The relevance information of the document may be used to target the serving of advertisements with the document.The process detailed in the next patent application aims at improving the relevancy of ads, and helping in suggesting targeted terms by allowing an advertiser to submit broad targeting information. While serving ads using that information, the search engine would log and collect search query terms, and possibly concepts and concept keywords, associated with the serving of the ad, and suggest candidate targeting keywords or phrases to the advertiser from those logs.
Suggesting and/or providing targeting information for advertisements Inventors: Ross Koningstein US Patent Application 20060149625 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query terms (or some other information, such as concepts, concept keywords, etc.) associated with the serving of the ad, and (iv) generating one or more candidate targeting keywords or phrases for the ad using the logged search query terms. At least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be provided as targeting information for the ad. Alternatively, at least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be presented to the advertiser. Advertiser input with respect to the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) presented may then be accepted. Zero or more of the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) may be provided as targeting information for the ad, in accordance with the accepted advertiser input. Cost information (e.g., average cost per selection, average cost per conversion, total costs, etc.) may be presented in association with the candidate targeting information.Traffic assistance similar to that provided by Google acquisition Zipdash is the focus of the next document, and Zipdash is named as a service that would use this process. Some integration of local search and advertising is hinted at in the filing.
Transportation routing Inventors: Henry Rowley, and Shumeet Baluja US Patent Application 20060149461 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 31, 2004
Abstract
A computer-implemented method of providing personalized route information involves gathering a plurality of past location indicators over time for a wireless client device, determining a future driving objective using the plurality of previously-gathered location indicators, obtaining real-time traffic data for an area proximate to the determined driving objective, and generating a suggested route for the driving objective using the near real-time traffic data.How are the layouts of ads best optimized? What size fonts are used, and how many ads are displayed on pages? Google explores some of those concepts, and notes that the presentation ideas for ads in the following document also may be used to present news items on search results pages.
Ad rendering parameters, such as size, style, and/or layout, of online ads Inventors: Shumeet Baluja, Vibhu Mittal, and Mehran Sahami US Patent Application 20060149622 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for at least one ad from the set of two or more ads using the accepted ad information. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may use accepted ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering constraints may include space available for rendering the ads, a footprint available for rendering the ads, and/or a maximum number of ads permitted to be rendered. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may include maximizing a value associated with serving at least one ad from the set of two or more ads with ad rendering parameters subject to the ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering parameters may include sizes of the served ads, and/or a layout of the served ads.Automating the approval process for paid ads could benefit Google and advertisers. What would such an approval process entail? The next document identifies a number of issues involved in approving an ad, and in followups on advertisements. It also describes a whitelist for exceptions to some of the policies that may keep ads from being approved.
Advertisement approval Inventors: Gregory Joseph Badros, Robert J. Stets, and Lucy Zhang US Patent Application 20060149623 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
An advertisement for use with an online ad serving system may be automatically checked for compliance with one or more policies of the online ad serving system. If the advertisement is approved, then it is allowed by be served by the ad serving system. Follow up checks of the advertisement may be scheduled. One follow up check may be to test a landing page of the advertisement for compliance with policies. If the advertisement is not approved, hints for making the ad comply with one or more violated policies may be provided to an advertiser associated with the ad, and/or an ad serving system customer service representative. Determining whether or not to approve the advertisement may include determining violations of one or more policies by the advertisement, and, for each of the violations, determining whether or not to exempt the violation.
Google Local Patent Applications
The following patent applications primarily look at local search, though some of the processes described within them may have broader reaching implications, such as the one on visual segmentation of information on pages.
Businesses associated with a specific location often don't use paid search as part of their advertising strategy. This first patent application thoughtfully goes into some of the reasons why, and explores ways to make it a more attractive medium, including expanded pay-per-call functionality, as well as providing information such as business hours and types of payment accepted.
Generating and/or serving local area advertisements, such as advertisements for devices with call functionality Inventors: Shumeet Baluja and Henry A. Rowley US Patent Application 20060149624 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Sets of local, (e.g., online) ads may be generated by obtaining sets of information about (e.g., local) establishments, each set including a business address information and/or a telephone number, (b) determining, for each of the sets, a location using at least one of at least a portion of the business address information and at least a portion of the telephone number, and (c) generating, for each of the sets, an ad that includes targeting information that targets the serving of the ad to queries related to the determined location. A query, including information about a location of a client device, may be accepted and at least one of the generated ads that includes targeting information that targets the location of the client device may be determined.How does a local search determine which document is the most relevant and authoritative one to return at the top of a local search list? A number of factors are considered in this next set of described processes.
Authoritative document identification Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Geeta Chaudhry US Patent Application 20060149800 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system determines documents that are associated with a location, identifies a group of signals associated with each of the documents, and determines authoritativeness of the documents for the location based on the signals.If you are familiar with Microsoft's research on VIPS: a VIsion based Page Segmentation Algorithm, some of the ideas in the next document may sound a little familiar. Imagine a page that includes restaurant reviews for a number of restaurants in a city neighborhood. Might the information from that page be segmented, so that reviews for each of the restaurants can be included in results for the right restaurants in a local search? This visual gap approach might be helpful in that endeavor.
The document also notes that this process might be helpful in determining what an image is about, and in indexing them. It also mentions that it could help the search engine understand what the different parts of a page are, and how much value they have (for instance, distinqusihing between content and navigation.)
Document segmentation based on visual gaps Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149775 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A document may be segmented based on a visual model of the document. The visual model is determined according to an amount of visual white space or gaps that are in the document. In one implementation, the visual model is used to identify a hierarchical structure of the document, which may then be used to segment the document.While a search engine may be able to determine where a business related to a page is located, it may want to associate that location with a geographical region. Something like a Hierarchical Triangular Mesh may be used to help in making that association.
Indexing documents according to geographical relevance Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149774 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A local search engine efficiently indexes documents relevant to a geographical area by indexing, for each document, multiple location identifiers that collectively define an aggregate geographic region. When creating the index, the search engine may determine a set of geographical areas surrounding a geographical area relevant to a document and associate references to the set of geographical areas with the document index.It's not always clear what the geographic location of a webpage is, based upon information presented on individual pages, though sometimes that type of information exists on the pages. The process displayed in this next filing tries to take information that may be spread out on a page, and tie it together to identify a location.
Classification of ambiguous geographic references Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149742 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A location classifier generates location information based on textual strings in input text. The location information defines potential geographical relevance of the input text. In determining the location information, the location classifier may receive at least one geo-relevance profile associated with at least one string in the input text, obtain a combined geo-relevance profile for the document from the at least one geo-relevance profile, and determine geographical relevance of the input text based on the combined geo-relevance profile.Imagine if a search engine could serve either regular web search results or local results. Some search queries could be ambiguous, and may make it difficult to determine whether to serve local search information or general web search results. The inventors of the next document provide some ideas that may reduce some of that ambiguity a little.
Location extraction Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Lawrence Elias Greenfield US Patent Application 20060149734 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system receives a search query that includes a set of search terms, determines whether at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of a geographic area, and determines whether the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area when at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of the geographic area. The system performs a local search, based on one or more of the search terms, to identify documents associated with the geographic area when the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area.The title of this patent application, and the previous one are so similar, that I was concerned they might be duplicates when I uncovered them. The one above attempts to "extract" location information from a query. This next one attempts to "extract" location information from pages being indexed, with confidence scores indicating how likely it is that business information on a page is associated with an address on the same page.
Local item extraction Inventors: Michael Dennis Riley US Patent Application 20060149565 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system identifies a document that includes an address and locates business information in the document. The system assigns a confidence score to the business information, where the confidence score relates to a probability that the business information is associated with the address. The system determines whether to associate the business information with the address based on the assigned confidence score.Microsoft
The titles of two Microsoft patent applications are very similar, but the processes described aren't. The first one looks at anchor text in links, and the titles to pages those links point to, to see if the anchor text is accurate. The second one looks at links on pages, using the Document Object Model, and tries to determine if they are valid links while simulating the experience of a user of the page viewing it with a browser. This may help a search engine understand dynamic html menus, and view links that may otherwise be unavailable to a search engine crawler.
Methods and apparatus for the evaluation of aspects of a web page Inventors: Michael A. Starbird Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060150076 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Methods and apparatus are provided for evaluating the extent to which link text, representing a hypertext link on a web page, corresponds to a web page referenced by the link. In one embodiment, the link text may be compared to the title of a web page referenced by the link, such as by parsing the link text and page title into individual tokens and comparing the tokens. The extent to which the link text and the page title correspond may be expressed as a percentage of tokens which match. A graphical user interface (GUI) may be provided which presents a visual indication when a minimum percentage of tokens do not match.Methods and apparatus for evaluating aspects of a web page Inventors: Ryan Farber Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060150111 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
An automated method is provided for evaluating the validity of links included in a web page. The web page may contain commands, such as dynamic HTML or other embedded commands, which are configured for execution upon the occurrence of an event, such as a provision of input by a user. According to one embodiment, the method includes causing the links to be generated by simulating the occurrence of the event. Upon the generation of the links, their validity may be determined, and a report may be produced which indicates whether the links are valid.My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)
There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.
Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:55 PM | Permalink
New Search Patent Applications: July 11, 2006 - Google Patent Filings by the DozenTwelve Google patent applications where published this past week, including seven that focus upon geographical information and local search.
(1) How good a match ads may be to the content on pages they are served upon through a program like Adsense. (2) A process for improving the targeting of ads. (3) Real time transportation data for travelers. (4) An exploration of ad layouts. (5) An automated advertising approval process. (6) Reasons for location-based businesses to use local area advertising, including an improved pay-per-call process.
(7) How the most authoritative local search results are identified. (8) The use of visual gap segmentation to separate information on different parts of pages, with implications beyond local search. (9) Ties business locations with regional areas. (10) A method for reducing ambiguity in geographic location. (11) Deciding whether regular or local results might be shown when at least one query term might be geographical in nature. (12) Assigning confidence scores between business identity and location information on a page.
Microsoft adds two more, on the validity of links, and on the validity of anchor text in links. They have very similar names, and cover topics that are related, but the processes involved are very different.
This first patent filing discusses some of the factors that the search engine may look at to determine whether or not an ad served on a page a good match for that page and possibly the category that page may be within, including some user behavior information such as whether or not ads are selected, how long a viewer remains on a page, and if a conversion is made.
Associating features with entities, such as categories of web page documents, and/or weighting such features Inventors: Ross Koningstein, Stephen Lawrence, and Valentin Spitkovsky US Patent Application 20060149710 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Features that may be used to represent relevance information (e.g., properties, characteristics, etc.) of an entity, such as a document or concept for example, may be associated with the document by accepting an identifier that identifies a document; obtaining search query information (and/or other serving parameter information) related to the document using the document identifier, determining features using the obtained query information (and/or other serving parameter information), and associating the features determined with the document. Weights of such features may be similarly determined. The weights may be determined using scores. The scores may be a function of one or more of whether the document was selected, a user dwell time on a selected document, whether or not a conversion occurred with respect to the document, etc. The document may be a Web page. The features may be n-grams. The relevance information of the document may be used to target the serving of advertisements with the document.The process detailed in the next patent application aims at improving the relevancy of ads, and helping in suggesting targeted terms by allowing an advertiser to submit broad targeting information. While serving ads using that information, the search engine would log and collect search query terms, and possibly concepts and concept keywords, associated with the serving of the ad, and suggest candidate targeting keywords or phrases to the advertiser from those logs.
Suggesting and/or providing targeting information for advertisements Inventors: Ross Koningstein US Patent Application 20060149625 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query terms (or some other information, such as concepts, concept keywords, etc.) associated with the serving of the ad, and (iv) generating one or more candidate targeting keywords or phrases for the ad using the logged search query terms. At least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be provided as targeting information for the ad. Alternatively, at least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be presented to the advertiser. Advertiser input with respect to the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) presented may then be accepted. Zero or more of the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) may be provided as targeting information for the ad, in accordance with the accepted advertiser input. Cost information (e.g., average cost per selection, average cost per conversion, total costs, etc.) may be presented in association with the candidate targeting information.Traffic assistance similar to that provided by Google acquisition Zipdash is the focus of the next document, and Zipdash is named as a service that would use this process. Some integration of local search and advertising is hinted at in the filing.
Transportation routing Inventors: Henry Rowley, and Shumeet Baluja US Patent Application 20060149461 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 31, 2004
Abstract
A computer-implemented method of providing personalized route information involves gathering a plurality of past location indicators over time for a wireless client device, determining a future driving objective using the plurality of previously-gathered location indicators, obtaining real-time traffic data for an area proximate to the determined driving objective, and generating a suggested route for the driving objective using the near real-time traffic data.How are the layouts of ads best optimized? What size fonts are used, and how many ads are displayed on pages? Google explores some of those concepts, and notes that the presentation ideas for ads in the following document also may be used to present news items on search results pages.
Ad rendering parameters, such as size, style, and/or layout, of online ads Inventors: Shumeet Baluja, Vibhu Mittal, and Mehran Sahami US Patent Application 20060149622 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for at least one ad from the set of two or more ads using the accepted ad information. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may use accepted ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering constraints may include space available for rendering the ads, a footprint available for rendering the ads, and/or a maximum number of ads permitted to be rendered. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may include maximizing a value associated with serving at least one ad from the set of two or more ads with ad rendering parameters subject to the ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering parameters may include sizes of the served ads, and/or a layout of the served ads.Automating the approval process for paid ads could benefit Google and advertisers. What would such an approval process entail? The next document identifies a number of issues involved in approving an ad, and in followups on advertisements. It also describes a whitelist for exceptions to some of the policies that may keep ads from being approved.
Advertisement approval Inventors: Gregory Joseph Badros, Robert J. Stets, and Lucy Zhang US Patent Application 20060149623 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
An advertisement for use with an online ad serving system may be automatically checked for compliance with one or more policies of the online ad serving system. If the advertisement is approved, then it is allowed by be served by the ad serving system. Follow up checks of the advertisement may be scheduled. One follow up check may be to test a landing page of the advertisement for compliance with policies. If the advertisement is not approved, hints for making the ad comply with one or more violated policies may be provided to an advertiser associated with the ad, and/or an ad serving system customer service representative. Determining whether or not to approve the advertisement may include determining violations of one or more policies by the advertisement, and, for each of the violations, determining whether or not to exempt the violation.
Google Local Patent Applications
The following patent applications primarily look at local search, though some of the processes described within them may have broader reaching implications, such as the one on visual segmentation of information on pages.
Businesses associated with a specific location often don't use paid search as part of their advertising strategy. This first patent application thoughtfully goes into some of the reasons why, and explores ways to make it a more attractive medium, including expanded pay-per-call functionality, as well as providing information such as business hours and types of payment accepted.
Generating and/or serving local area advertisements, such as advertisements for devices with call functionality Inventors: Shumeet Baluja and Henry A. Rowley US Patent Application 20060149624 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Sets of local, (e.g., online) ads may be generated by obtaining sets of information about (e.g., local) establishments, each set including a business address information and/or a telephone number, (b) determining, for each of the sets, a location using at least one of at least a portion of the business address information and at least a portion of the telephone number, and (c) generating, for each of the sets, an ad that includes targeting information that targets the serving of the ad to queries related to the determined location. A query, including information about a location of a client device, may be accepted and at least one of the generated ads that includes targeting information that targets the location of the client device may be determined.How does a local search determine which document is the most relevant and authoritative one to return at the top of a local search list? A number of factors are considered in this next set of described processes.
Authoritative document identification Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Geeta Chaudhry US Patent Application 20060149800 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system determines documents that are associated with a location, identifies a group of signals associated with each of the documents, and determines authoritativeness of the documents for the location based on the signals.If you are familiar with Microsoft's research on VIPS: a VIsion based Page Segmentation Algorithm, some of the ideas in the next document may sound a little familiar. Imagine a page that includes restaurant reviews for a number of restaurants in a city neighborhood. Might the information from that page be segmented, so that reviews for each of the restaurants can be included in results for the right restaurants in a local search? This visual gap approach might be helpful in that endeavor.
The document also notes that this process might be helpful in determining what an image is about, and in indexing them. It also mentions that it could help the search engine understand what the different parts of a page are, and how much value they have (for instance, distinqusihing between content and navigation.)
Document segmentation based on visual gaps Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149775 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A document may be segmented based on a visual model of the document. The visual model is determined according to an amount of visual white space or gaps that are in the document. In one implementation, the visual model is used to identify a hierarchical structure of the document, which may then be used to segment the document.While a search engine may be able to determine where a business related to a page is located, it may want to associate that location with a geographical region. Something like a Hierarchical Triangular Mesh may be used to help in making that association.
Indexing documents according to geographical relevance Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149774 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A local search engine efficiently indexes documents relevant to a geographical area by indexing, for each document, multiple location identifiers that collectively define an aggregate geographic region. When creating the index, the search engine may determine a set of geographical areas surrounding a geographical area relevant to a document and associate references to the set of geographical areas with the document index.It's not always clear what the geographic location of a webpage is, based upon information presented on individual pages, though sometimes that type of information exists on the pages. The process displayed in this next filing tries to take information that may be spread out on a page, and tie it together to identify a location.
Classification of ambiguous geographic references Inventors: Daniel Egnor US Patent Application 20060149742 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A location classifier generates location information based on textual strings in input text. The location information defines potential geographical relevance of the input text. In determining the location information, the location classifier may receive at least one geo-relevance profile associated with at least one string in the input text, obtain a combined geo-relevance profile for the document from the at least one geo-relevance profile, and determine geographical relevance of the input text based on the combined geo-relevance profile.Imagine if a search engine could serve either regular web search results or local results. Some search queries could be ambiguous, and may make it difficult to determine whether to serve local search information or general web search results. The inventors of the next document provide some ideas that may reduce some of that ambiguity a little.
Location extraction Inventors: Daniel Egnor and Lawrence Elias Greenfield US Patent Application 20060149734 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system receives a search query that includes a set of search terms, determines whether at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of a geographic area, and determines whether the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area when at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of the geographic area. The system performs a local search, based on one or more of the search terms, to identify documents associated with the geographic area when the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area.The title of this patent application, and the previous one are so similar, that I was concerned they might be duplicates when I uncovered them. The one above attempts to "extract" location information from a query. This next one attempts to "extract" location information from pages being indexed, with confidence scores indicating how likely it is that business information on a page is associated with an address on the same page.
Local item extraction Inventors: Michael Dennis Riley US Patent Application 20060149565 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
A system identifies a document that includes an address and locates business information in the document. The system assigns a confidence score to the business information, where the confidence score relates to a probability that the business information is associated with the address. The system determines whether to associate the business information with the address based on the assigned confidence score.Microsoft
The titles of two Microsoft patent applications are very similar, but the processes described aren't. The first one looks at anchor text in links, and the titles to pages those links point to, to see if the anchor text is accurate. The second one looks at links on pages, using the Document Object Model, and tries to determine if they are valid links while simulating the experience of a user of the page viewing it with a browser. This may help a search engine understand dynamic html menus, and view links that may otherwise be unavailable to a search engine crawler.
Methods and apparatus for the evaluation of aspects of a web page Inventors: Michael A. Starbird Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060150076 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Methods and apparatus are provided for evaluating the extent to which link text, representing a hypertext link on a web page, corresponds to a web page referenced by the link. In one embodiment, the link text may be compared to the title of a web page referenced by the link, such as by parsing the link text and page title into individual tokens and comparing the tokens. The extent to which the link text and the page title correspond may be expressed as a percentage of tokens which match. A graphical user interface (GUI) may be provided which presents a visual indication when a minimum percentage of tokens do not match.Methods and apparatus for evaluating aspects of a web page Inventors: Ryan Farber Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060150111 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
An automated method is provided for evaluating the validity of links included in a web page. The web page may contain commands, such as dynamic HTML or other embedded commands, which are configured for execution upon the occurrence of an event, such as a provision of input by a user. According to one embodiment, the method includes causing the links to be generated by simulating the occurrence of the event. Upon the generation of the links, their validity may be determined, and a report may be produced which indicates whether the links are valid.My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)
There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.
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Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:55 PM | Permalink
New Search Patent Applications: July 11, 2006 - Google Patent Filings by the DozenTwelve Google patent applications where published this past week, including seven that focus upon geographical information and local search.
(1) How good a match ads may be to the content on pages they are served upon through a program like Adsense. (2) A process for improving the targeting of ads. (3) Real time transportation data for travelers. (4) An exploration of ad layouts. (5) An automated advertising approval process. (6) Reasons for location-based businesses to use local area advertising, including an improved pay-per-call process.
(7) How the most authoritative local search results are identified. (8) The use of visual gap segmentation to separate information on different parts of pages, with implications beyond local search. (9) Ties business locations with regional areas. (10) A method for reducing ambiguity in geographic location. (11) Deciding whether regular or local results might be shown when at least one query term might be geographical in nature. (12) Assigning confidence scores between business identity and location information on a page.
Microsoft adds two more, on the validity of links, and on the validity of anchor text in links. They have very similar names, and cover topics that are related, but the processes involved are very different.
This first patent filing discusses some of the factors that the search engine may look at to determine whether or not an ad served on a page a good match for that page and possibly the category that page may be within, including some user behavior information such as whether or not ads are selected, how long a viewer remains on a page, and if a conversion is made.
Associating features with entities, such as categories of web page documents, and/or weighting such features Inventors: Ross Koningstein, Stephen Lawrence, and Valentin Spitkovsky US Patent Application 20060149710 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Features that may be used to represent relevance information (e.g., properties, characteristics, etc.) of an entity, such as a document or concept for example, may be associated with the document by accepting an identifier that identifies a document; obtaining search query information (and/or other serving parameter information) related to the document using the document identifier, determining features using the obtained query information (and/or other serving parameter information), and associating the features determined with the document. Weights of such features may be similarly determined. The weights may be determined using scores. The scores may be a function of one or more of whether the document was selected, a user dwell time on a selected document, whether or not a conversion occurred with respect to the document, etc. The document may be a Web page. The features may be n-grams. The relevance information of the document may be used to target the serving of advertisements with the document.The process detailed in the next patent application aims at improving the relevancy of ads, and helping in suggesting targeted terms by allowing an advertiser to submit broad targeting information. While serving ads using that information, the search engine would log and collect search query terms, and possibly concepts and concept keywords, associated with the serving of the ad, and suggest candidate targeting keywords or phrases to the advertiser from those logs.
Suggesting and/or providing targeting information for advertisements Inventors: Ross Koningstein US Patent Application 20060149625 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query terms (or some other information, such as concepts, concept keywords, etc.) associated with the serving of the ad, and (iv) generating one or more candidate targeting keywords or phrases for the ad using the logged search query terms. At least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be provided as targeting information for the ad. Alternatively, at least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be presented to the advertiser. Advertiser input with respect to the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) presented may then be accepted. Zero or more of the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) may be provided as targeting information for the ad, in accordance with the accepted advertiser input. Cost information (e.g., average cost per selection, average cost per conversion, total costs, etc.) may be presented in association with the candidate targeting information.Traffic assistance similar to that provided by Google acquisition Zipdash is the focus of the next document, and Zipdash is named as a service that would use this process. Some integration of local search and advertising is hinted at in the filing.
Transportation routing Inventors: Henry Rowley, and Shumeet Baluja US Patent Application 20060149461 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 31, 2004
Abstract
A computer-implemented method of providing personalized route information involves gathering a plurality of past location indicators over time for a wireless client device, determining a future driving objective using the plurality of previously-gathered location indicators, obtaining real-time traffic data for an area proximate to the determined driving objective, and generating a suggested route for the driving objective using the near real-time traffic data.How are the layouts of ads best optimized? What size fonts are used, and how many ads are displayed on pages? Google explores some of those concepts, and notes that the presentation ideas for ads in the following document also may be used to present news items on search results pages.
Ad rendering parameters, such as size, style, and/or layout, of online ads Inventors: Shumeet Baluja, Vibhu Mittal, and Mehran Sahami US Patent Application 20060149622 Published July 6, 2006 Filed on December 30, 2004
Abstract
Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for at least one ad from the set of two or more ads using the accepted ad information. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may use accepted ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering constraints may include space available for rendering the ads, a footprint available for rendering the ads, and/or a maximum number of ads permitted to be rendered. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may include maximizing a value associated with serving at least one ad from the set of two or more ads with ad rendering parameters subject to the ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering parameters may include sizes of the served ads, and/or a layout of the served ads.Automating the approval process for paid ads could benefit Google and advertisers. What would such an approval process entail? The next document identifies a number of issues involved in approving an ad, and in followups on advertisements. It also describes a whitelist for exceptions to some of the policies that may keep ads from being approved.
Advertisement approval Inventors: Gregory Joseph Badros, Robert J. Stets, and Lucy Zhang US Patent Application 20060149623 Published July