US 7,818,399 B1
Methods of expanding commercial opportunities for internet websites through coordinated offsite marketingGeneral
US 7,818,399 B1
Methods of expanding commercial opportunities for internet websites through coordinated offsite marketing
Tech Center:
2400 Networking, Multiplexing, Cable, and Security
Examiner:
Patrice L Winder
Art Unit:
2445 Computer Networks
Agent:
Inventors:
D. Delano Ross; Daniel D. Ross; Joseph R. Michaels; William R. May; Richard A. Anderson
Assignee:
NEXCHANGE CORPORATION
Priority:
09/17/98
Filed:
01/30/06
Granted:
10/19/10
Expiration:
06/20/21
Abstract
An e-commerce outsourcing system and method provides hosts with transparent, context-sensitive e-commerce supported pages. A plurality of visually perceptible elements associated with and identifying a source of a host's web page are stored in the form of data in a computer database for future use. The host includes one or more links within a page on the host website that correlate with a selected commerce object, which may be contextually related to material in the page. The commerce object can be a buying opportunity for a product of a third-party merchant, a product category containing a plurality of products of third-party merchants, or a dynamic selection indicator of a merchant's product. A plurality of hosts may choose to link to the same commerce object. Upon activation of the link displayed by a particular host website, a visitor computer is served with a page displaying the visually perceptible elements associated with that specific host's website and information associated with the commerce object correlated to the link. Where the commerce object is a dynamic selection indicator, the content is selected at the time of activation based upon an analysis of the page containing the activated link.