Google Inc.

Hal Ronald Varian

Amit J Patel

Jeffrey David Oldham

Robert On

Michial Allen Gunter

Matthew D Cutts

Matt Rosencrantz

Carroll Philip Gossett

Brian Axe

Nathan Stoll

Swaminathan Krishnamurthy

Shrikant S Kelkar

Doug Beeferman

Elissa Lee

Hyunyoung Choi

Yossi Matias

Daniel John Zigmond

Jason S Bayer

C Philip Gossett

Deepak Chandra

Tal Franji

Robert Gardner

Neil Campbell Rhodes

Patrick Hummel

Kaustuv

Steve Stukenborg

Danny Tom

Kaustuv Kaustuv

Jagpreet S Duggal

Noam Nisan

Misha Seltzer

Neal H Patel

Instead of accepting competing ads and using an arbitration function (e.g., an auction) to choose winning ads to be served with a document, sets of ads (perhaps having different characteristics) can be generated, and an arbitration function can be used to select the winning set of ads. Such arbitrations on sets of ads can consider how ads, search results, colors, positions, fonts, etc., all interact with each other and affect the usefulness of the sets of ads to advertisers, end users, document publishers, and/or an ad serving entity.

Using the utility of configurations in ad serving decisions

Systems and methods of the present disclosure can provide an improved user experience on client devices selecting to receive context-based third-party content by reducing the number of third-party content items presented for display on such client devices. A data processing system can be configured to employ an auction mechanism with selection criterion thresholds (such as minimum bid values) that result, when used in auctions, in enforcing a limit on the amount of third-party content presented for display on client devices that have selected to receive context-based third-party content. The selection criterion thresholds can result, when used in auctions, in enforcing minimum revenues for publishers. The selection criterion thresholds can be determined offline based on historical statistical parameters.

System and method for providing context-based third-party content

Systems and methods are provided for reducing consumer electronic device returns. According to various aspects, a server receives () usage data of an electronic communication device by a consumer. The server examines () existing usage indicating correlations between various usage factors of additional devices and return incidents of the additional devices, and calculates () individual probabilities of return for the various usage factors and a total probability of return for the electronic communication device. In embodiments, if any of the individual probabilities or the total probability meets or exceeds a threshold probability, the server contacts () at least one of the electronic communication device or the consumer.

Systems and methods for predicting occurrences of consumers returning purchased devices

Methods, and systems, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable storage mediums, including a method for navigating among content items in a set. The method includes receiving a selection of a content item that is presented in association with a resource page, the content item referencing a results page; determining a plurality of content items that are related to but different from the results page; pre-loading one or more of the plurality of content items; providing the results page in an interface along with one or more controls for enabling a user to navigate among the plurality of content items without having to navigate back to the resource page first; and providing the pre-loaded content items with the results page to enable fast display of the pre-loaded content items upon navigation from the results page to a selected one of the pre-loaded content items using the control.

Navigating among content items in a set

A network access device directs an electronic device, distinct from the network access device, to display graphical user interface, the graphical user interface comprising a network access self-identification user interface. The network access device obtains a selection of a user identification option, through the self-identification user interface. In accordance with a determination that the selected user identification option corresponds to a registered user (e.g., a registered user in a research panel), of a previously defined set of registered users of the network access device, the network access device enables access to a communications network, in accordance with the application of one or more logging rules corresponding to the selected user. Further, in accordance with a determination that the selected user identification option corresponds to an unregistered, guest user, the network access device enables access to the communications network, without the application of any logging rules.

System and method for tracking network traffic of users in a research panel

Systems and methods for identifying inadequate search content are provided. Inadequate search content, for example, can be identified based on statistics associated with the search queries related to the content.

Identifying inadequate search content

A system, computer-readable storage medium storing at least one program, and a computer-implemented method for tracking network traffic of users in a research panel are presented. A packet for a network device coupled to the network access device is received. An indicia corresponding to a presumptive user of the network device is obtained, where the presumptive user includes a member of a set of known users. One or more logging rules is applied to the network device, where the one or more applied logging rules correspond to the obtained indicia. Information relating to the packet is stored when the packet satisfies at least one of the logging rules applied to the network device.

Documents or document sets may be scored to reflect a value of an action, such as a selection for example, when an ad is served with the document (or a document belonging to a document set). A cost associated with the action with respect to an ad that was served with a document may then be adjusted using the score. For example, ad scores may be accepted or determined, and a document may be scored using the ad scores when served with the document and ad scores across a collection of documents to generate a document score. Each of the ad scores may indicate a value of an action with respect to an ad, such as a conversion rate, or a return on investment for an ad selection for example. Document scores used in this way may help advertisers get a more consistent cost per conversion, or return on investment, without requiring them to enter and manage various offers for various documents and/or various ad serving systems having various conversion rates or returns on investment.

Adjusting ad costs using document performance or document collection performance

A simultaneous ascending price auction ('SAA') can be used to allocate advertising inventory to bidders. The advertising inventory can be, for example, radio or television advertisement spots ('spots'). The bidders can be advertisers that can provide advertisements for presentation in the spots. Two or more contiguous spots can define an advertising block. Spots or advertising blocks can be allocated to advertisers by the SAA mechanism based on bid criteria. The SAA can perform simultaneous advertisement scheduling and pricing. The auction allocation can be optimized to facilitate efficient allocation of advertisements to spots or blocks.

Advertising inventory allocation

An e-commerce price index is constructed and maintained based on consumer actions in connection with one or more e-commerce websites. A data collector software module collects information regarding products sold or available for sale online, including a price and rate of clicks received for each product on the website(s). An index software module analyzes the collected information to construct the price index. Specifically, the index software module scrubs the collected information to remove outliers and fill in gaps and calculates a click-weighted average price by product category and day. The index module generates the price index by aggregating and normalizing the calculated click-weighted average prices. The index software module can compute the e-commerce price index on a virtually real-time basis. Thus, the e-commerce price index can provide useful information about online pricing trends far earlier than traditional indices.

E-commerce price index

A server receives information from a user, where the information designates one or more images that the user is interested in seeing when viewing a web portal. The server stores the received information. The server generates a web page that includes links to one or more of the designated images based on the stored information, where the web page is generated when the user visits the web portal and sends the generated web page to the user.

Image management

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, in which access allocations to a spectrum band and transmit rights to the access allocations are defined. Real-time auction bids for the transmit rights to the access allocations to the spectrum band are sent from a participating device, and the participating device iteratively increments the bids until a maximum bid is reached or a transmit right is awarded to the participating device.

Growing community of inventors

Danville, CA, United States of America

Hal Ronald Varian