Abstract: Users who visit a network site typically visit other sites in the same session. The surfing pattern or “trail” through the pages may be significant once aggregated, because it outlines the underlining relationship between those pages or sites. Once such user navigational trail data is available, the relationship between network sites on such user trails may used to make various decisions regarding advertising and keyword management. Additionally, the relative popularity of each trail may be used to rank or compute relative weights for the various user trails. Such information may then aid in keyword suggestion and advertising decisions.

Abstract: Users that visit a network site typically visit other sites in the same session. The surfing pattern or “trail” through the sites is significant because it may outline the underlining relationship between those sites. Once such data is available, the relationship between sites on the same user trails may be used to determine the placement of advertisements for sites by publishers. Additionally, the popularity or volume of traffic that navigates along a particular user trail may be used to affect the ranking/ordering of advertisements placed on a certain publisher site. An advertising broker may determine advertising pricing in part based on navigational path or user trail information. Thus, placing advertising on sites that are closer in proximity to the advertised site may cost more than placing advertising on sites not as close in proximity to the advertised site.