Promoting websites based on location

Abstract

A computer system, method, and media for associating locations with ranked websites are provided. The computer system includes a search engine, a log database, and a location database that are employed to respond to search requests from users by returning appropriately ranked websites to the user. The websites are ranked using the location of the website and the location of the user to select websites to receive high ranks. Additionally, the search engine includes a correction feature that reevaluates locations for a website or user when a large number of obtained locations suggest a different location than a currently associated location for the website or the user.

The technology claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method for associating a location with a website, the method comprising:
 retrieving log data having uniform resource locators for websites from a plurality of users;   organizing the log data based on websites;   for each website, obtaining, from a location database, locations for the plurality of users that visited that website indicated by the log data ;   grouping the plurality of users based on the obtained locations;   counting a number of the plurality of users at each of the obtained locations;   selecting the obtained location having more of the plurality of users than any other obtained location; and   associating the selected location with the website.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the log data comprises data from user activity logs and search logs. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising ranking the websites based on location using a Kullback-Leibler divergence. 
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 3 , wherein a website that is unexpectedly popular in the associated location is assigned a higher rank than websites that meet popularity expectations. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the location database is provided by a third-party. 
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 5 , further comprising for each user of the plurality of users, reevaluating the obtained locations based on the associated locations for the websites visited by the user. 
     
     
         7 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 6 , further comprising updating the obtained location of the user to correspond to the associated location of a majority of the websites visited by the user. 
     
     
         8 . One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for a method to associate a location with a website, the method comprising:
 retrieving index data having page content for websites;   organizing the index data based on websites;   extracting anchors pointing to within each website;   for each website, obtaining locations for each anchor from a location database;   grouping the anchors based on the obtained locations;   counting a number of anchors at each of the obtained locations;   selecting the obtained location having more of the anchors than any other obtained location; and   associating the selected location with the website.   
     
     
         9 . The media of  claim 8 , wherein the location database is provided by a third-party. 
     
     
         10 . The media of  claim 9 , further comprising for each anchor, reevaluating the obtained locations based on the associated locations for the websites having the anchors. 
     
     
         11 . The media of  claim 10 , further comprising updating the obtained location of the anchor to correspond to the associated location of a majority of the websites that the anchor points to. 
     
     
         12 . A computer-implemented method for ranking a website based on location, the method comprising:
 selecting a website;   identifying a location for the website from multiple sources;   counting a number of sources having similar locations for the website;   ranking the websites based on location using a Kullback-Leibler divergence, wherein a website that is unexpectedly popular in the associated location is assigned a higher rank than websites that meet popularity expectations; and   increasing a rank, based on the count, for the website in a results set returned to a user that issued a query to a search engine, wherein the user has a location similar to the identified location of the website.   
     
     
         13 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 12 , wherein the multiple sources include page content, Yellow Pages SM  data, open directory project data, and data obtained from a ULB component of a search engine. 
     
     
         14 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 13 , wherein the page content includes location data within the website. 
     
     
         15 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 13 , wherein location data within the uniform resource locator for the website is assigned to be the location of the website. 
     
     
         16 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 12 , wherein the location includes country, state, or municipality. 
     
     
         17 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 13 , wherein the location data may indicate that users visit a place corresponding to the website. 
     
     
         18 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 13 , wherein the location data may be derived from browsing activity for users of the search engine. 
     
     
         19 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 13 , further comprising determining whether there is overlap of the location data provided by the multiple sources. 
     
     
         20 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 19 , further comprising altering the rank based on the degree of overlap.