Web Page Popularity Ranking via TCP Session Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional search engines fail to accurately rank web pages based on their actual popularity, as they do not consider the frequency of visits to web pages when determining importance, and equally divide scores along hypertext links without considering relative popularity.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for monitoring and analyzing the popularity of web pages and links by deploying monitoring devices to track TCP sessions, extracting visit data, and using this information to refine page scores in search engine rankings, incorporating popularity counts into PageRank algorithms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional search engines use only content analysis and hyperlink structure to rank web pages, then the ranking system is simple to implement, but the accuracy of popularity measurement deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces monitoring devices as intermediary components that passively observe and record TCP sessions between users and web servers. These devices capture actual visit data without interfering with normal web traffic, providing accurate popularity measurements while keeping the core search engine architecture relatively simple. The monitoring devices act as mediators between user behavior and the ranking system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the conventional mechanical approach of equal score division in PageRank with a data-driven approach using actual visit statistics. Instead of mechanically distributing scores equally among linked pages, the system uses empirical traffic data to dynamically adjust score distribution, substituting theoretical hyperlink analysis with observed user behavior patterns.
2Reliability
If conventional search engines equally divide scores along hypertext links, then the PageRank algorithm is computationally efficient, but the relevance of search results deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameters used in PageRank from static hyperlink counts to dynamic traffic-based metrics. By incorporating actual visit data, the system adjusts the weight and importance parameters of different links based on observed user behavior, making the scoring mechanism more responsive to actual content relevance while maintaining the iterative computational framework of PageRank.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary data collection and analysis by monitoring TCP sessions and building traffic statistics before the actual search ranking process. This pre-computation of popularity metrics allows the search engine to use these pre-analyzed data in subsequent ranking operations, reducing the computational burden during real-time search execution.
3Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If conventional search engines do not monitor actual web page visits, then the system architecture remains simple, but the ability to detect and measure popularity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The monitoring devices leverage existing TCP protocol handshakes and session establishment processes to automatically collect visit data. The system uses the natural communication patterns between clients and servers to gather popularity information without requiring additional active probing or complex monitoring infrastructure. Each TCP session inherently provides the data needed for popularity measurement.
Data Source
AI summary
The popularity of web pages is monitored and used to rank the web pages retrieved in response to an Internet search. The popularity of a web page is proportionate to the number of visits to that web page. Web pages with greater popularity are ranked higher in priority. Furthermore, the score of a first web page is propagated to a plurality of second web pages to which the first web page is linked substantially in relative proportion to the popularity of the links from the first web page to each of the second web pages. Monitoring devices monitor TCP packets traversing the Internet and extract information from the TCP packets, such as the requested URI or URL, the client IP address, a server IP address and a server host name, and a referrer URI, if any. The extracted information is forwarded to a processing module that keeps track of the popularity of the web pages.