Abstract: Techniques for grouping hyperlinked documents are provided. Links near or in the neighborhood of the hyperlinked documents are analyzed in order to group the hyperlinked documents by topic. For example, links that are search results can be grouped by identifying other hyperlinked documents that have multiple forward links to the search results. The search results can then be grouped according to the forward links of the other hyperlinked documents.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on page on the web (or some other document of any media type). The present invention may do so by (i) obtaining content that includes available spots for ads, (ii) determining ads relevant to content, and/or (iii) combining content with ads determined to be relevant to the content.

Abstract: A server improves the ranking of search results. The server includes a processor and a memory that stores instructions and a group of query themes. The processor receives a search query containing at least one search term, retrieves one or more objects based on the at least one search term and determines whether the search query corresponds to at least one of the group of query themes. The processor then ranks the one or more objects based on whether the search query corresponds to at least one of the group of query themes and provides the ranked one or more objects to a user.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on, or to serve ads in association with, various content such as search results pages, Web pages, e-mail, etc., without requiring the advertiser to enter and/or maintain certain targeting information, such as keyword targeting. This may be accomplished by using a searchable data structure, such as an inverted index for example, of available advertiser Web information. The advertiser Web information may include terms and/or phrase extracted from the advertiser's Website. In particular, a search query may be used to search for matching advertisers, and therefore matching ads. For example, the search query can be used to search an inverted index including words and/or phrases extracted from advertiser Websites. The advertiser Web page, or some other identifier, can be used as a key to search for an associated ad.

Abstract: A client-side application (such as a browser, a browser plug-in, a browser toolbar plug-in, etc. on an end user's computer) is used to support the serving of content-relevant ads to the client device. The client-side application may provide such support by sending document information (such as a document identifier, document content, content relevance information, etc.) to a content ad server. The client-side application may also be used to combine content of the document and the content-relevant ads. For example, the client-side application may combine content of the document and the ads in a window (e.g., in a browser window), may provide the ads in a window above, below, adjacent to a document window, may provide the ads in “chrome” of the browser, etc.

Abstract: Techniques for finding related hyperlinked documents using link-based analysis are provided. Backlink and forwardlink sets can be utilized to find web pages that are related to a selected web page. The scores for links from web pages that are from the same host and links from web pages with numerous links can be reduced to achieve a better list of related web pages. The list of related web pages can be utilized as a feature to a word-based search engine or an addition to a web browser.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on page on the web (or some other document of any media type). The present invention may do so by (i) obtaining content that includes available spots for ads, (ii) determining ads relevant to content, and/or (iii) combining content with ads determined to be relevant to the content.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on e-mails. The present invention may do so by (i) obtaining information of an e-mail that includes available spots for ads, (ii) determining one or more ads relevant to the e-mail information, and/or (iii) providing the one or more ads for rendering in association with the e-mail.

Abstract: The relevance of advertisements to a user's interests is improved. In one implementation, the content of a web page is analyzed to determine a list of one or more topics associated with that web page. An advertisement is considered to be relevant to that web page if it is associated with keywords belonging to the list of one or more topics. One or more of these relevant advertisements may be provided for rendering in conjunction with the web page or related web pages.