Method and system for optimizing web page images

1. A method for optimizing images of a web page on a network server, comprising:

detecting a distance measure between the images in a reduced document object model (DOM) tree representation of the web page to determine the relationship among the images;

in response to the determination of the distance measure relationship among the images, combining two or more related images into a combinational image; and

updating the web page to replace references to the related images with a reference to the combinational image.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said detecting the images to determine the relationship among the images further comprises detecting the relationship of the images being commonly referenced by different web pages.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the step of detecting the relationship of the images being commonly referenced by different web pages further comprises: detecting the relationship of the images being dynamically referenced by different web pages.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the step of combining the related images into a combinational image comprises combining the images according to the high-to-low order of the similarity of the image accessing pattern.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the step of combining related images into a combinational image comprises combining the images according to the high-to-low order of their probabilities of being commonly referenced.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said detecting the images to determine the relationship among the images further comprises detecting the relationship of the images being commonly referenced by different segments of the same web page.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of combining the related images into a combinational image comprises:

according to the distance between the images in the DOM tree, combining the images with shorter distance before combing the images with longer distance.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of combining related images into a combinational image comprises:

traversing the DOM tree representing the web page to combine similar images into the combinational image.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sum of the sizes of the two or more related images is less than a predefined combinational image threshold.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reference to the combinational image comprises a reference to the file of the combinational image and the position information of the related images in the combinational image.

11. A system for optimizing images of a web page on a network server, comprising:

image detection means for detecting a distance measure between the images in a reduced document object model (DOM) tree representation of the web page to determine the relationship among the images;

image combination means, for combining two or more related images into a combinational image in response to the determination of the distance measure relationship among the images; and

web page updating means, for updating the web page to replace references to said related images with a reference to the combinational image.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the image detection means comprises:

image inclusion relationship analysis means for analyzing and recording the relationship of the images being commonly referenced.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the image combination means comprises one or more of the following:

web page level image combination means for combining the images according to the relationship of the images being commonly referenced by different web pages;

segment level image combination means for combining the images according to the relationship of the images being commonly referenced by different segments of the same web page; and,

website level image combination means for combining the images according to the relationship of the images by the similarity of an image accessing pattern.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the image combination means combines the images according to the high-to-low order of their probabilities of being commonly referenced.

15. The system of claim 12 , wherein the image combination means combines the images according to the distance between the images in the DOM tree by combining the images with shorter distance before combining the images with longer distance.

16. The system of claim 11 , wherein the image combination means traverses the DOM tree representing the web page to combine similar images into the combinational image.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the image combination means combines the two or more related images according to a predefined threshold for the size of the combinational image.

18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the web page updating means changes the references to the related images to a reference to the file of the combinational image and the position information of the related images in the combinational image.

19. A computer program product, said computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium with computer readable code stored thereon which, when executed by the computer, will implement a method for optimizing images of a web page on a network server, said method comprising steps of:

detecting a distance measure between the images in a reduced document object model (DOM) tree representation of the web page to determine the relationship among the images;

in response to the determination of the distance measure relationship among the images, combining two or more related images into a combinational image; and

updating the web page to replace references to the related images with a reference to the combinational image.