Abstract: Targeted advertising content is provided for display in a page over a network in accordance with a technique in which advertisements are selected based on a determination of a user's short-term and long-term behavioral interests. Short-term and long-term information relating to a user's online activities is collected and associated with predetermined interest categories. Based on the collected information, short-term and long-term behavioral interest scores are determined for specific categories. The scores are employed to generate values for use in selecting advertisements. In one embodiment, a short-term score and two long-term scores are determined for one or more interest categories. A first long-term score models awareness with respect to a given category. A second long-term score and the short-term score are response-oriented scores that model the user's interest in making a response with respect to a given category, such as by purchasing a product or service within the category.

Abstract: A universal advertisement services system provides a common framework for managing web-based advertisement campaigns associated with various kinds of advertisement formats and advertisement pricing mechanisms. A unified set of interfaces is provided for advertisement configuration, fetching, arbitration and optimization, and advertisement campaign validation, exposing services to external parties as well as internal users. The universal advertisement services system enables delivery of an optimal available guaranteed or performance-based advertisement for a specified position in a web page and based on given business rules and metrics.