Real-time Content Ranking Adjustment via Session Randomization

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing content presentation systems fail to accurately reflect user preferences and maintain consistency in content item rankings, leading to users missing relevant content due to static ranking algorithms that prioritize visibility over relevance.

Innovation Solution

A computer system that adjusts content item rankings in real-time by generating adjusted score values based on user interaction data, geolocation, and demand analysis, incorporating randomization and exponential-decaying weights to balance visibility and relevance across user sessions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If content items are ranked based on user interaction data with fixed weights, then the rankings reflect historical user preferences, but the rankings fail to adapt to changing user preferences and context in real-time

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccuracy of content item rankingsVSAvoidadaptability to changing user preferences

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements dynamic weighting where the importance of different user interaction signals (clicks, views, conversions) changes over time based on recency and contextual factors. This allows the ranking system to adapt to evolving user preferences while maintaining stability through controlled decay rates, resolving the contradiction between reliability and adaptability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The system dynamically adjusts ranking parameters including weight values for different interaction types, decay rates, and threshold values based on observed user behavior patterns and contextual signals. This enables the system to maintain accurate rankings while adapting to changing conditions by modifying the underlying parameters that govern ranking calculations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

2Productivity

If the ranking algorithm introduces greater variance by varying rankings according to time periods, then more content items receive visibility, but bias is introduced in favor of highly-ranked content items during different time periods

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvevisibility distribution across content itemsVSAvoidunbiased representation of user preferences

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements periodic recalibration of ranking weights and parameters at scheduled intervals or triggered by significant user behavior changes. This periodic adjustment ensures that content items receive equitable visibility opportunities across different time periods while systematically reducing biases through updated weight assignments based on accumulated data.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #19Periodic action

Solution Approach 2:

The system continuously monitors user interaction patterns and uses this feedback to adjust ranking parameters and detect bias. When certain content items or time periods show abnormal interaction patterns, the system automatically adjusts weights or triggers recalibration to maintain unbiased representation, resolving the contradiction between productivity and reliability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

3Adaptability or versatility

If the sorted order of content items changes frequently between user submissions, then the system reflects real-time user preferences, but users may miss opportunities to interact with content items of interest due to inconsistency

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvereal-time responsiveness to user preferencesVSAvoidconsistency in content item rankings

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSStability of the object's composition

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements threshold-based triggering where ranking adjustments are buffered and only applied when confidence levels or statistical significance thresholds are met. This cushioning mechanism prevents premature or noisy adjustments, ensuring that real-time preference changes are captured while filtering out random variations that would create unnecessary inconsistency for users.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #11Beforehand cushioning (Prior cushioning)

Solution Approach 2:

The system applies partial updates to rankings by adjusting only the weights or parameters that have significantly changed based on new user interactions, rather than completely re-ranking all content items. This selective adjustment maintains real-time responsiveness for affected content while preserving stability for the broader ranking structure.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Data Source

PatentUS11003727B2Real-time distribution and adjustment of content placement

Publication Date: 2021.05.11 GRUBHUB HLDG

AI summary

Techniques related to real-time distribution and adjustment of content placement are disclosed. A database stores score values respectively corresponding to content items. Computing device(s) are coupled to the database and to digital data storage device(s) storing instructions that cause the computing device(s) to perform a method for adjusting, at runtime, visibility of a particular content item. The method comprises computing a random value for the particular content item based on an identifier for a communication session between the computing device(s) and a client device. The method further comprises generating an adjusted score value for the particular content item based on combining the random value with a particular score value corresponding to the particular content item. Still further, the method comprises sending, to the client device via the communication session, the content items including the particular content item, which is sorted among the content items according to the adjusted score value.