In a race to search engine patents, we covered several new patents from the top three search engines.
Google filed two patents this week in what appears to be a move into the post-search behavioral advertising market that Yahoo is already offering to its advertisers and will be available in MSN’s AdCenter.
The first Google patent filing, ‘Determining ad targeting information and/or ad creative information using past search queries‘ describes this patent as follows in the following abstract:
Ad information, such as ad targeting keywords and/or ad creative content for example, may be determined using aggregated selected document-to-query information associations. For example, popular terms and/or phrases also associated with a selected document may be used as ad targeting keywords and/or ad creative content for an ad having the document as a landing page. Query information may be tracked on a per document level, a per domain level, etc. The determined ad information may be used to automatically populate an ad record, or may be provided to an advertiser as suggested or recommended ad information.
This patent involves generating both the recommended keywords AND ad creative for the advertiser based on the content of the advertiser’s web site. Google Adwords advertisoers already receive suggestions of relevant keywords for their campaigns based upon the initial keywords provided. This new service could help advertisers who have difficulty generating good ad creatives by adjusting these keywords and creatives based upon ad performance on Adword’s advertiser’s behalf such as placing keywords in the creative, terms for inclusion in the content of the creative, changing the creative, etc.
In addition, it takes into account your past search behavior, looking at factors such as age, geo location, past search queries, and ads delivered to the viewer of the AdSense advertisement in the past.
Google seems to be building and optimizing ad creatives and ad landing pages for their Adwords advertisers making them a one-stop advertising shop, cutting out the ad copywriters, designers, and keyword researchers.
The second major Google AdWords patent filed is called ‘results based personalization of advertisements in a search engine‘, and is according to the abstract:
Personalized advertisements are provided to a user using a search engine to obtain documents relevant to a search query. The advertisements are personalized in response to a search profile that is derived from personalized search results. The search results are personalized based on a user profile of the user providing the query. The user profile describes interests of the user, and can be derived from a variety of sources, including prior search queries, prior search results, expressed interests, demographic, geographic, psychographic, and activity information.
Much like what other search-behavioral targeting networks such as Yahoo and Advertising.com have been doing, Google builds a profile based on your past search behavior and then serves up ad creatives best matching that profile.
A possible invasion of privacy in the works? In this second patent, it mentions:
The invention also has embodiments in computer program products, systems, user interfaces, and computer implemented methods for facilitating the described functions and behaviors.
This probably ties in with the use of their popular desktop applications like Google Toolbar and Google Talk. It’s certainly conceivable that information gathered through the use of their programs would be used in serving ads we might want to see. We can only hope our information will not be abused.