|Publication number||US7970936 B2|
|Application number||US 10/607,585|
|Publication date||Jun 28, 2011|
|Filing date||Jun 26, 2003|
|Priority date||Jun 26, 2003|
|Also published as||US20040267961|
|Publication number||10607585, 607585, US 7970936 B2, US 7970936B2, US-B2-7970936, US7970936 B2, US7970936B2|
|Inventors||Timothy Alan Dietz, Walid M. Kobrosly, Nadeem Malik|
|Original Assignee||International Business Machines Corporation|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (16), Classifications (14), Legal Events (4)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
The present invention relates to computer managed communication networks such as the World Wide Web (Web) and, particularly, to systems, processes and programs for making the interactive user display interface, i.e. GUI, to Web pages received from the Web more user friendly and easier to use with respect to Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that are the addresses of the database sources on the Web from which the displayed Web documents have been accessed.
For decades, the data processing industries have been devoting great resources to making computer supported user interactive display technology systems and methods to provide interactive users with an interface environment that is easy to use. This has been a major task since the great expansion of computer users over the past decade has expanded computer use to less and less skilled and sophisticated users. This effort has been further driven by the rise of the Internet or Web. The latter two terms are meant to be interchangeable and are used as such throughout this application. In effect, there has been a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past five years. As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human-computer interfaces. There is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the industrial world's population; which, up to a few years ago was computer-illiterate or, at best, computer indifferent. The population will, to a large part, have to become involved with computer interfaces and computer interfaces must, thus, continue to be simplified and made more user friendly.
This problem of simplification is particularly pronounced in the Web or Internet. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which has been the documentation language of the Internet or Web for years, offers direct links between pages and other documentation on the Web and a variety of related data sources that were, at first, text and then images, and now include media, i.e. “hypermedia”, that involves audio, video and all types of visual files. It is now possible for the Web user to literally spend hours going through Web pages or document after document in search of subject matter of interest to the user. It is frequently the case that after the user has gone through page upon page of Web documents, he wishes to go back to certain pages of interest.
These pages are identified by their addresses on the Web, i.e. URLs. As source databases on the Web have become more numerous and extensive, the URLs have become much more lengthy and complex. Such increased length and complexity of URLs have been intensified by the present use of automated Web search engines to locate user sought documents. These search engines operate dynamically and automatically on the Web, and use robot crawlers, also referred to as spiders or harvesters that interface with the user's Web browsers through requests and responses to locate Web pages in the Web database sources. As the robots crawl through such combined databases to locate the sought Web documents, they dynamically generate the URLs of the accessed Web documents. These URLs conventionally consist of a lead portion defining the domain of the Web database source followed by a description of the path that the robot followed through the hierarchy of the source database to reach the document location. These automatically generated URLs have highly complex and lengthy path portions, often full of question marks and other command punctuation, such as “&, %, $ and +”.
Thus the user and, particularly, the limited or computer novice user is faced with a difficult and tedious burden in attempting to retrieve Web documents of interest by entering the URLs of such documents. Of course bookmarking, which enables the user to have his Web browser save the lengthy and complex URLs for subsequent Web document retrieval, has been an enormous aid to users in such retrieval. However, there remains a great many circumstances wherein the user must enter a complex and lengthy URL. There is still a great need in Web document accessing to relieve users of this burden. Large database sources or domains maintained, i.e. owned, or hosted by large business, educational or governmental entities do employ internal techniques to make URLs of their Web documents simpler and more user-friendly. This may involve generating static Web pages from the dynamic data and storing the pages in the database of the source. Search robots or users visiting the source database, e.g. Web site, may then use conventional simple URLs. Alternatively, there are techniques available for rewriting the URL to simplify it by modifying the path portion of the URL but always within the database source, i.e. the domain portion of the URL does not change.
The present invention provides a method, system and program of doing business that enables the owners and hosts of smaller database sources, e.g. Web sites, and other interested Web users with a convenient and effective implementation for inexpensively simplifying any cumbersome URLs that are made public. The key to the invention is to turn the function of converting to simpler URLS from cumbersome URLs over to Web service providers. Accordingly, the converted URL will have a new domain portion, i.e. the Web service provider's domain, along with a simplified path portion defining the path with the Web service provider's domain.
In its broadest aspects, the present invention relates to a Web communication network with user access via a plurality of data processor controlled interactive receiving display stations for displaying received Web documents accessible from database sources on the Web. The invention provides an implementation for simplifying the URLs displayed for each received Web document that uses the standard service provider means for accessing Web documents for the receiving display stations responsive to user requests in combination with conventional Web database source servers, response to service provider requests that include means for accessing requested Web documents from said Web database sources, and means for defining the URLs for said accessed Web documents to include a URL domain section and a URL path portion within the database source. In this environment, the invention provides means within the service provider to convert the original URLs of said accessed Web documents to include a domain section specifying the service provider's domain and a path portion within said service provider's domain that is simpler than the original URL path portion. The path portion in the converted URL is usually shorter than the path portion in the original URL. The invention is particularly effective in dealing with the above-mentioned resulting problems when the means for defining the URLs for the accessed Web documents dynamically generate the URL path portion.
Most effective results are achieved when the means for converting said original URLs are optional, and there are means enabling an authorized user to activate said optional means for converting the original URLs. In such an operation, there should be means in the service provider to charge a user a fee for activating the conversion of an original URL. The user activating said means for converting may, of course, be the host or owner of a Web database source defining the original URL.
The service provider would also effect reconversion through means for respectively reconverting the converted URLs back to the original URLs whereby Web document requests directed to said converted URLs will respectively be transmitted through the service provider to the database sources on the Web.
The present invention will be better understood and its numerous objects and advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art by reference to the following drawings, in conjunction with the accompanying specification, in which:
Before going further into the details of specific embodiments, it will be helpful to understand from a more general perspective the various elements and methods that may be related to the present invention. Since a major aspect of the present invention is directed to documents, such as Web pages and media content therein, transmitted over networks, an understanding of networks and their operating principles would be helpful. We will not go into great detail in describing the networks to which the present invention is applicable. Reference has also been made to the applicability of the present invention to a global network, such as the Internet or Web. For details on Internet nodes, objects and links, reference is made to the text, Mastering the Internet, G. H. Cady et al., published by Sybex Inc., Alameda, Calif., 1996.
The Internet or Web is a global network of a heterogeneous mix of computer technologies and operating systems. Higher level objects are linked to the lower level objects in the hierarchy through a variety of network server computers. These network servers are the key to network distribution, such as the distribution of Web pages and related documentation. In this connection, the term “documents” is used to describe data transmitted over the Web or other networks and is intended to include Web pages with displayable text, graphics, other images and audio. This displayable information may be still, in motion or animated, e.g. animated GIF images.
Web documents are conventionally implemented in HTML language, which is described in detail in the text entitled Just Java, van der Linden, 1997, SunSoft Press, particularly at Chapter 7, pp. 249-268, dealing with the handling of Web pages; and also in the above-referenced Mastering the Internet, particularly at pp. 637-642, on HTML in the formation of Web pages. In addition, aspects of this description will refer to Web browsers. A general and comprehensive description of browsers may be found in the above-mentioned Mastering the Internet text at pp. 291-313. More detailed browser descriptions may be found in the above-mentioned Internet: The Complete Reference, Millennium Edition text: Chapter 19, pp. 419-454, on the Netscape Navigator; Chapter 20, pp. 455-494, on the Microsoft Internet Explorer; and Chapter 21, pp. 495-512, covering Lynx, Opera and other browsers.
In the description of the invention, search engines will be used to locate and pre-access the previously accessed Web documents stored at the receiving display stations. As described in the above-mentioned Internet: The Complete Reference, Millenium Edition text, pp. 395 and 522-535, search engines use keywords and phrases to query the Web for desired subject matter. In carrying out its search, the search engine looks through the database for matches to keywords subject to the engine syntax. The search engine then presents to the user a list of the Web pages it determines to be closest to the requested query. Some significant search engines are: AltaVista, Infoseek, Lycos, Magellan, Webcrawler and Yahoo.
A generalized diagram of a portion of the Web in which the computer controlled display terminal 57 used for Web page receiving during searching or browsing is connected as shown in
The Web documents are accessed from the Web database sources 64 through appropriate Web database access servers 65. Other database sources, such as sources 61 and 62, may be accessed through Web servers 66 maintained by service providers. It is through such service providers 66 that the present invention may be implemented.
Web server systems and, particularly, Web server systems that generate their URLs dynamically are described in the article, Adaptive Fast Path Architecture, E. C. Hu et al., IBM Journal of Research, Volume 45, No. 2, 2001.
The following is an example of a cumbersome URL that could be automatically generated:
This URL would have to be typed in order on the receiving display in order to access a reference to an “IBM ThinkPad Notebook Model A” description from a database source on the Web on which a “Business Week” article was stored. As will be subsequently described in greater detail with respect to
In effect, the domain portion of the URL has been converted from that of the owner of the database, “www.ibm.com”, to the domain of the service provider, “www.citation.com”. Also, the path portion of the URL has been converted and shortened from over 125 characters, some of which are complex, to a shortened and simplified public URL with a 10 to 12 character path defining the hierarchy within service provider 66 database 68 pointing to stored data for reconverting the converted public URL to the original URL so that the appropriate Web document may be accessed from source databases 61 and 62 or that connected to 63.
The running of the process set up in
Although certain preferred embodiments have been shown and described, it will be understood that many changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the scope and intent of the appended claims.
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|U.S. Classification||709/245, 713/162, 726/6|
|International Classification||H04L29/06, G06F17/30, G06F15/16, H04L29/08|
|Cooperative Classification||H04L67/02, H04L69/329, H04L29/06, G06F17/30887|
|European Classification||G06F17/30W5L, H04L29/08N1, H04L29/06|
|Jun 26, 2003||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, NEW Y
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:DIETZ, TIMOTHY A.;KOBROSLY, WALID M.;MALIK, NADEEM;REEL/FRAME:014240/0903;SIGNING DATES FROM 20030625 TO 20030626
|Feb 6, 2015||REMI||Maintenance fee reminder mailed|
|Jun 28, 2015||LAPS||Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees|
|Aug 18, 2015||FP||Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee|
Effective date: 20150628