Customized Internet Content Delivery System

Abstract

A system and method for delivering customized Internet content is provided. [Solution] The system of the present invention comprises a storage means 12 of home web pages and a web server 4. In the storage means 12, each web page is associated with a segment identifier and a web page address, and some web pages are associated with the same web page address and each form a customized version of the general web page associated with the same web page address. The web server 4 is configured to receive a general query for accessing a web page outputted from a device 3 connected to the Internet, the general query including the web page address together with the footprint of the device, to obtain a segment identifier associated with the footprint, to access the storage means 12, to obtain the web page associated with the web page address and the segment identifier of the general query, and to send the web page back to the device 3.

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present invention relates to web servers, and in particular to serving customized content. [Background technology]

[0002] Nowadays, it is common for websites to customize their content for their visitors, making the content more engaging and improving the overall user experience.

[0003] Currently there are two ways to customize: -Pre-identification based approach; and -Agnostic approach.

[0004] In a pre-identification based approach, a visitor has an account with the web server they are visiting so that the web server knows who the user is and can provide customized content for that user.

[0005] Such a pre-identification based approach is not flexible or smooth for users: in fact, users must first authenticate before they can get customized content, which adds work, requires maintaining or storing identifiers and passwords, and changes the user experience.

[0006] The alternative approach, the agnostic approach, typically involves two types of solutions.

[0007] The first type of solution is to display a normal web page and then customize it as quickly as possible. Typically, this is done by an automatic reload without the user's request as soon as the user can be associated with a user cluster, or by customizing parts of the page with JavaScript code. Reloading the page does not lend itself to a satisfying user experience (UX) and may make the site seem flawed. Using JavaScript also brings challenges in keeping the code up to date, as it cannot be done in a secure environment and JavaScript execution may be blocked.

[0008] Moreover, because the customization is taking place right before the user's eyes, the user cannot help but be aware of the customization, which may give the impression that the customization is artificial or even contrived, which significantly reduces the UX. Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0009] The present invention aims to improve this situation. [Means for solving the problem]

[0010] To this end, the present invention comprises: 1. A system for delivering customized internet content, comprising: a home web page storage means (12), each web page being associated with a segment identifier and a web page address, with some web pages being associated with the same web page address, thereby forming a customized version of the general web page associated with the same web page address; a web server arranged to receive a general query for accessing a web page, said general query including a web page address sent from a device connected to the Internet and including together with a footprint of said device, said web server arranged to determine a segment identifier associated with said footprint, to access said storage means to retrieve a web page associated with the web page address of said general query and said segment identifier, and to transmit said web page back to said device; To provide a customized Internet content delivery system comprising:

[0011] This system is extremely advantageous because it provides customization at the time of web page load, and because the user is accessing a web page that is already customized (and therefore more relevant), the customization is transparent to the user, improving the user experience.

[0012] In various embodiments, the present invention may include one or more of the following features: - the web server includes a reverse proxy arranged to query a database in which each footprint is associated with a segment identifier; -the reverse proxy is an NGINX server; -the reverse proxy is a microservice; - the web server is arranged to receive queries for accessing web pages sent by users from devices connected to the Internet, not including a footprint of said devices, generate said footprint and return said footprint together with a generic version of said web pages; and the web server is arranged to receive a general query for accessing a web page, the general query comprising a web page address together with a segment identifier, and to access the storage means directly using the general query for access;

[0013] The present invention further provides a method for delivering customized internet content, comprising the steps of: a) receiving a general query for accessing a web page submitted by a user from an internet connected device, the query including a web page address together with a footprint of the device; b) determining a segment identifier associated with the user from the footprint of the device; c) accessing a home web page storage means, each web page being associated with a segment identifier and a web page address, and some home web pages being associated with the same web page address, thereby forming respective customized versions of the general web page associated with the same web page address, to retrieve the web pages associated with the web page address of the general query and the segment identifier determined in step b); d) transmitting the web page retrieved in step c) back to the device; and The present invention relates to a method for delivering customized Internet content, comprising:

[0014] Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will emerge more clearly from the following description and from the drawings, examples of which are given by way of non-limiting illustration of the invention. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0015] [Figure 1] 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a first embodiment of a customized Internet content delivery system. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0016] In the drawings and the following description, most of the figures include specific configurations / components, which may not only aid in a better understanding of the invention, but also contribute to the definition of the invention, where appropriate.

[0017] 1 is a schematic diagram of a customized Internet content delivery system 2 according to the present invention, which receives queries for access to web content, in particular web pages, from one or more devices 3 connected to the Internet.

[0018] In the example described in this specification, the system 2 for delivering customized Internet content comprises one or more web servers 4 including a reverse proxy 6 and one or more servers 8, a database 10 that associates query identifiers Reqid with segment identifiers SN, and a storage means 12 containing home web pages.

[0019] In the examples described herein, the reverse proxy 6 and the one or more servers 8 may be formed in the form of computer code or suitable programs executed by one or more processors. A processor is understood to mean any processing means suitable for the calculations described below. Such a processor may be formed in any known manner, such as a microprocessor for a personal computer, a dedicated chip of the FPGA or SoC type, a computing resource on a grid or cloud, a cluster of graphical processors (GPU), a microcontroller, or any other form configured to provide the necessary computing power for the implementation described below. One or more of these elements may also be formed in the form of a dedicated electronic circuit, such as an ASIC. A combination of a processor and an electronic circuit may also be considered. A processor for machine learning may also be considered. The reverse proxy 6 and the one or more servers 8 are described in more detail below and may also be combined in the form of a single entity. They also have communication means via the Internet that allow them to receive queries for Internet content from one or more devices 8 and return the content to the one or more devices 8 if access to the content is available.

[0020] In the examples described herein, the database 10 and the storage means 12 may be realized in any data storage type arranged to receive digital data, such as hard disks, SSD hard disks, any form of flash memory, random access memory, magnetic disks, local or distributed storage on the cloud, etc. The data from the calculations of the system 2 may be stored in any memory type similar to or in the memory of the database 10 and the storage means 12. These data may be erased or may be kept after the system 2 completes its task.

[0021] A standard function of a web server 4 is to receive queries for Internet content from device 8 and return that content to device 8. This is typically done by sending a GET query, provided it is the http (or https) protocol, containing the web address or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that the user of device 8 wishes to access.

[0022] A standard web server 4 does not allow customization of web resources unless it authenticates the user, i.e., unless some form of authentication session has taken place before the web server. This authentication allows the web server to select customized content for the user from one general web page address. Customized content is understood to mean, for example, the display of a page where all or part of the content has been modified according to the authenticated user's wishes and / or preferences and / or tastes and / or habits and / or location and / or language, etc. This can be done, for example, in a sports news site, by highlighting the latest content related to one or more teams that the user has indicated as favorites.

[0023] The customized Internet content delivery system 2 according to the present invention is unique in that it is capable of performing specific processing of a homepage query without the need for user authentication. In other words, the customized Internet content delivery system 2 is arranged to receive a general query that does not include a user identifier and to provide the user with a version of a web page that is tailored to the user's wishes and / or preferences and / or tastes.

[0024] This web page is further notable as a special case in that while the web server may attempt to implement customizations for other pages in the site based, for example, on possible access paths from that web page, without authentication the web server does not have access to any information that could allow it to customize the user experience.

[0025] To this end, the applicant has found it advantageous to prepare a customized web page through pre-processing of the query for accessing the web page, even if this delays the client-side load by a few milliseconds.

[0026] That is, the web server 4 receives a query for accessing the web page Hp.html, referenced GET(Hp.html) in figure 1, and sends it directly to the reverse proxy 6. It is essentially known that the reverse proxy 6 is primarily used for load balancing of the web servers 4, which consist of a large number of servers 8, allowing the management of a large flow of visitors.

[0027] The reverse proxy 6 in the embodiment described herein is partially repurposed to allow customization of the web page returned to the device 3. For this purpose, the reverse proxy 6 uses the identifier Reqid of the device 3. If the identifier Reqid exists, it is stored locally as a cookie on the device 3 and is sent to the web server 4 together with the query GET(Hp.html).

[0028] If the device 3 does not have the identifier Reqid, the identifier Reqid is generated and stored for the next visit. In the example described here, the identifier Reqid is generated by the packet fingerprint.js (https: / / fingerprintjs.com) which ensures that a unique identifier is obtained for each device 3. As a variant, the identifier Reqid may be generated by another method.

[0029] The reverse proxy 6 consults the database 10 based on the identifier Reqid to retrieve the segment identifier, which is used to select customized content.

[0030] In particular, users of devices 3 are grouped according to their actions: for example, they may be grouped based on having previously visited a particular page or set of particular pages, or based on similar ideas (e.g., having items in their cart but not purchasing, selecting particular information, etc.).

[0031] Once this grouping is determined, customized web pages are generated for such groups of users (also called segments). Finally, the database 10 is updated to associate the identifier Reqid with the segment identifier that corresponds to the identifier Reqid.

[0032] In this manner, the reverse proxy 6 retrieves the segment identifier Sn by accessing the database 10. This segment identifier Sn identifies a group of users for which a specific customization is provided.

[0033] For performance optimization, the database 10 may advantageously be implemented in the form of a cache within the reverse proxy 6. Alternatively, the database 10 may be implemented in any other useful manner.

[0034] The reverse proxy 6 then uses the web page-segment identifier pair to retrieve a customized version of the web page Hp.html for the identifier segment Sn from the storage means 12. In the example described here, this is achieved by appending a suffix corresponding to the segment identifier Sn to the web page name. Other implementations are possible, such as other naming conventions, storage in a repository associated with the segment identifier, etc.

[0035] In the example described herein, the reverse proxy 6 is an NGINX server. Alternatively, the reverse proxy 6 may be another reverse proxy, such as an HA proxy or a Traefik server. Alternatively, the reverse proxy 6 may be a microservice, for example implemented by a lambda server from Amazon Web Services.

[0036] As a variant, once the segment identifier Sn has been determined, the device 3 may store it in the same way as the identifier Reqid. This means that when the web server 4 receives a query to access the page Hp.html, the segment identifier Sn is also sent in the same way as the other cookies. The web server 4 may directly query the storage means 12 with the URL of the web page Hp.html and the segment identifier Sn. This returns the customized version.

[0037] In this way, the server 8 may return to the device 3 the page Hp_Sn.html, which is a customized version of the page Hp.html for the identifier segment Sn of the segment associated with the device 3. As a variant, the storage means 12 may not contain a complete copy of the customized web page, but only the customization elements, in which case the server 8 is responsible for combining them with the generic version of the web page before sending it to the device 3.

[0038] That is, the customized Internet content delivery system 2 allows a user of the device 3 to be provided with a customized version of a web page of a site without the user's authentication and without the user being aware that a customization has been performed between his query and the display of the web page on his screen. Tests performed by the applicant have also demonstrated that the execution of the system 2 takes only 10 ms, so that the execution time is not noticeable to the user.

Claims

1. 1. A system for delivering customized internet content, comprising: a home web page storage means (12), each web page being associated with a segment identifier and a web page address, some web pages being associated with the same web page address and each forming a customized version of the general web page associated with the same web page address; a web server (4) arranged to receive a general query for accessing a web page, said general query comprising a web page address sent from a device (3) connected to the Internet and including together with a footprint of said device (3), said web server (4) arranged to determine a segment identifier associated with said footprint, to access said storage means (12) to retrieve a web page associated with the web page address of said general query and said segment identifier, and to send said web page back to said device (3); A system for delivering customized internet content.

2. 2. The system for delivering customized Internet content as claimed in claim 1, wherein the web server (4) includes a reverse proxy (6) arranged to send queries to a database (10) in which each footprint is associated with a segment identifier.

3. 3. A system for delivering customized internet content according to claim 2, wherein the reverse proxy (6) is an NGINX server.

4. 3. The system for delivering customized internet content according to claim 2, wherein the reverse proxy (6) is a microservice.

5. 5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the web server (4) is arranged to receive queries for accessing web pages output by a user from a device (3) connected to the Internet, the queries not including a footprint of the device (3), generate the footprint and return the footprint together with a generic version of the web page.

6. 6. A system according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the web server (4) is arranged to receive a general query for accessing a web page, comprising a web page address together with a segment identifier, and to access the storage means (12) directly using the general query for access.

7. 1. A method for delivering customized internet content, comprising: a) receiving a general query for accessing a web page submitted by a user from any device connected to the Internet, the query including the web page address together with a footprint of the device; b) determining a segment identifier associated with the user from the footprint of the device; c) accessing a home web page storage means, each web page being associated with a segment identifier and a web page address, some home web pages being associated with the same web page address and each forming a customized version of a general web page associated with the same web page address, to retrieve a web page associated with the web page address of the general query and the segment identifier determined in step b); d) transmitting the web page retrieved in step c) back to said device; and A method for delivering customized internet content comprising:

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