System for identifying and selecting advertising categories

Abstract

A method is disclosed for providing advertising content for display in a page over a network. The advertising content is displayed based on a category assigned to the advertising content and an identified geographic location of a search query. The category correlating to a given search may be based on the search results. The search results may be associated with one or more categories and the category for selecting advertising content is determined in accordance with the amount of search results each category is correlated to. The provided advertising content may be selected from an available inventory of advertising content within the geographic location of the search query or the geographic location of an advertiser location associated with the geographic location of the search query.

We claim: 
     
         1 . In a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored therein data representing instructions executable by a programmed processor for matching a search query to an advertisement, the storage medium comprising instructions for:
 receiving a search term for the search query;   determining a geographic location as part of the search query;   determining a plurality of search results for the search term using the search query geographic location;   accessing a database of advertising categories and advertisements, wherein each advertisement is associated with a plurality of advertising categories and a plurality of geographic locations;   determining if the search term is correlated to one or more advertising categories in the database;   selecting a matched advertising category when the search term is correlated to one or more advertising categories in the database;   determining an associated advertising category relating to each of the plurality of search results when the search query does not correlate to one or more advertising categories in the database;   determining an amount of search results that each associated advertising category relates to;   selecting one of the associated advertising categories in accordance with the determined amount of related search results; and   identifying an advertisement for display to a user based on the selected advertising category and the geographic location of the search query, wherein the identified advertisement is selected from an available inventory of advertisements for the geographic location of the search query.   
     
     
         2 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the advertisement comprises displaying on a map an available inventory of a product within the geographic location. 
     
     
         3 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the associated advertising category relating to each of the plurality of search results is determined by an algorithmic comparison to the advertising categories in the database. 
     
     
         4 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein a plurality of the search results are related to one or more user created tags. 
     
     
         5 . The storage medium of  claim 4 , wherein the associated advertising category relating to each of the plurality of search results is determined based on the user created tag. 
     
     
         6 . The storage medium of  claim 4 , wherein each user created tag comprises descriptive information identifying a category of the related search result. 
     
     
         7 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein each advertisement is associated with a plurality of advertising categories and a plurality of geographic locations by:
 receiving, by an advertiser, a selection of at least one advertising category for each of the advertisements; and   receiving, by the advertiser, a selection of at least one geographic location associated with each of the advertisements.   
     
     
         8 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the associated advertising category is selected in accordance with the associated advertising category having the highest amount of search results that relate to the associated advertising category. 
     
     
         9 . The storage medium of  claim 1 , wherein the receiving a location comprises implicitly identifying the location from the search query. 
     
     
         10 . A computer system including a processor and memory for matching a search query to an advertisement, the computer system comprising:
 a user interface that receives a search term;   an advertisement database that stores a plurality of advertisements, wherein each of the plurality of advertisements are associated with at least one of a plurality of advertisement categories and at least one geographic location;   a search algorithm engine connected with the user interface that determines search results for the search term; and   a category engine connected with the search algorithm engine and the advertisement database for accessing the advertisement categories, wherein the category engine:
 identifies a geographic location associated with the search term; 
 selects an advertisement category when the search term matches one of the advertisements categories having available advertisements in the geographic location associated with the search term, 
 correlates each of the search results to at least one of the advertisement categories when the search term does not match one of the advertisement categories, 
 determines an amount of the search results that correlate to each of the at least one advertisement categories, 
 selects an advertisement category from the at least one advertisement categories in accordance with the determined amount when the search query does not match one of the advertisement categories, and 
 provides an advertisement in accordance with the selected advertisement category and the associated geographic location, wherein the provided advertisement is selected from an available inventory of advertisements for the geographic location of the search term. 
   
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the advertisement comprises displaying on a map an available inventory of a product within the geographic location. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein a plurality of the search results are related to one or more user created tags, and
 wherein each user created tag correlates each related search result to at least one advertisement category.   
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the advertising category correlating to each of a plurality of the search results is determined by an algorithmic comparison to the advertising categories in the advertisement database. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein providing the advertisement in accordance with the geographic location further comprises implicitly determining the geographic region associated with the search query, and selecting an advertisement having an associated geographic location within the geographic region of the search query. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the advertisement is provided in accordance with the advertisement category having the highest amount of search results that correlate to the search category when the search query does not match one of the advertisement categories. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the advertisement categories and geographic location associated with each advertisement are determined by:
 receiving a selection, by the advertiser, of the at least one of the advertisement categories for each advertisement; and   receiving a selection, by the advertiser, the geographic location associated with each advertisements.   
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 10 , wherein the category engine determines whether the search term matches one of the advertisement categories before correlating each of the search results to an advertisement category. 
     
     
         18 . A method for matching a query term and a location of a user to an ad of an advertiser using a processor, the method comprising:
 performing a search algorithm on the query term and the location received from the user to obtain search results;   determining if the query term matches one of a plurality of advertisement categories;   requesting advertiser content for the one of the plurality of advertisement categories when the query term matches that advertisement category and when there is an available inventory of advertiser content within a determined advertiser location associated with the location received from the user;   determining an associated advertisement category relating to each of the search results when the query term does not match one of the advertisement categories;   determining a count for each associated advertisement category related to the search results when the query term does not match one of the advertisement categories;   selecting the advertisement category with a highest count when the query term does not match one of the advertisement categories; and   requesting advertiser content for the selected advertisement category that is associated with the location, wherein the advertiser content is selected from an available inventory of advertiser content within a determined advertiser location associated with the location received from the user.   
     
     
         19 . The storage medium of  claim 18 , wherein the advertiser content comprises displaying on a map an available inventory of a product within the determined advertiser location. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the location of the user comprises an actual location of the user at the time of the search query, a location input by the user, a geographic location of the user determined from a computer profile of the user, or a geographic location of the user determined based on information from a computer of the user that performed the search query.