Google, the world's largest search company, has been awarded a patent on a process of serving advertisements and other information based upon the location of the visitor's cursor on its web page, rather than (or in addition to) terms entered into the search box.
Filed in early 2005, the patent, number 7756887, entitled System and Method for Modulating Search Relevancy Using Pointer Activity Monitoring, has raised concerns among privacy advocates, but it remains to be seen how or if Google will implement it.
The technology, similar in application to heat mapping that reveals where and for how long the surfer lingered over a particular item, indicates surfer interest in a subject. For example, a surfer that hovers over an advertisement for "Brand A" flower delivery may not be convinced to click through due to some aspect of ad placement or wording, but is still interested in flower delivery. This may cause a substitution of the "Brand A" ad for a competitor's ad, after a pre-determined amount of hover time.
Insiders expect that any implementation would rely on installing a JavaScript on the user's computer, similar to the way sites employing Google Analytics already do now.
"A client assistant residing in a client computer monitors movements of a user controlled pointer in a web browser, e.g., when the pointer moves into a predefined region and when it moves out of the predefined region," reads the patent. "A server then determines a relevancy value between an informational item associated with the predefined region and a search query according to the pointer hover period."
"Sometimes, a user may review multiple informational items responsive to a search query, moving a pointer over or near each of the informational items that the user reviews," it continues. "These various pointer activities can provide another way to evaluate the user's feedback with respect to a particular informational item. A longer pointer hover period may suggest a more positive opinion from the user about the relevance between the informational item and the user's interest. Sometimes, a particular pointer movement pattern may provide additional information about a user's interest."
The applications of this technology could help bridge the gap between standard and visual search and could make traffic buying less expensive for Internet marketers who may soon be able to purchase clicks "on the B-side."