METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR SERVING A WEB PAGE TO A CLIENT DEVICE BASED ON PRINTED PUBLICATIONS AND PUBLISHER CONTROLLED LINKS

摘要

The system described herein generates a search index and a hyperlink database associated with a plurality of printed publications from different publishers. The search index includes a plurality of words and/or phrases from the printed publications. The search index is preferably based on print data received from the associated publisher. The hyperlink database logically associates publication hit specifications with network addresses. A publication hit specification identifies a portion of the print data. For example, a publication hit specification may be a data record identifying a book by International Serial Book Number (ISBN), one or more pages in the book by page number, and one or more words in the book by the text of the word(s). Preferably, the network address points to a web page. The hyperlink database is based on network addresses received from an administrator authorized by the publisher (e.g., a person given a password by the content creator and/or copyright owner). Subsequently, the system is able to direct client devices to specific web pages in response to search queries received from client devices by correlating the received queries to network addresses using the search index and the hyperlink database.