Online marketplaces, such as auctions, are increasingly used to bring together buyers and sellers of non-traditional goods. For example, providers of web content or services may seek to sell their goods online, such as to website providers, for inclusion in webpages. However, oftentimes, website providers' and content providers' objectives cannot be captured by price alone. From a website provider's perspective, this may be because alternative sources of information content and services are not interchangeable, and may vary on key features that bear on the website provider's fundamental objectives. This may prevent the website owner from simply choosing very cheapest content bid available to him or her based on price alone. For example, a piece of paid content may simply be directed to a more appropriate topic than another piece of content. Alternatively, a piece of paid content may have secondary effects, such as by yielding a monetary impact on a website provider by increasing on-site conversion rate, or an non-monetary impact by increasing visitor engagement (e.g., session length) on the website. Thus, a piece of content that is nominally priced higher may yield valuable indirect monetary or non-monetary impact for a provider. Similar concerns may be faced by web content or web services providers as they seek to have their content featured on websites.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds