Keyword assignment to a web page

1. A method for assigning keywords to a web page to form thereby a set of web page representative keywords, comprising:

identifying self keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified self keywords, the self keywords comprising keyword data from the web page;

identifying in-link keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified in-link keywords, the in-link keywords comprising keyword data from other web pages including a link to the web page;

identifying out-link keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified out-link keywords, the out-link keywords comprising keyword data from other web pages having a link to said other web pages from the web page;

extracting, from each of the sets of identified self, in-link and out-link keywords, a plurality of potential keyword phrases, each keyword phrase comprising at least two keywords within a respective set of keywords;

evaluating each of the identified keywords in each of the set and extracted keyword phrases according to a reference function to determine thereby valid keywords and keyword phrases;

assigning weights to each of the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to form a set of weighted keywords and keyword phrases associated with the web page, wherein each of the valid in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases is assigned a weight according to a ranking of a respective source web page; generating a rank ordered of the valid keywords using one or more of count, unique count and weighted unique count heuristic functions; and

combining, in the rank order, the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to form a set of web page representative keywords and keyword phrases associated with the web page separated by first delineators and stored in a memory.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

processing the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to provide respective rank ordered sets of self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases, wherein said valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases are combined in rank order.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining, using one or more heuristic functions, a relative importance of each of the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases, wherein said valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases are combined in order of importance.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein identified keyword data comprises data from non-content portions of a web page.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein identified keyword data comprises data from one or more of a title field, a meta-keyword field and a meta-description field.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

identifying as potential keyword phrase any occurrences of one or more words in the self, in-link and out-link keyword lists separated by the first delineator.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein said first delineator comprises one of a comma, semicolon, tab and NULL character.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

identifying as potential keyword phrase any occurrences of N adjacent space-separated words in the self, in-link and out-link keyword lists, where N is an integer greater than one.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein any of a spelling engine, a grammar engine and a search engine are used to perform said evaluating.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein source web page rankings are determined by using a search engine.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein source web page rankings are determined according to a number of common related links pointing to the self page.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein valid in-link keywords and keyword phrases associated with web pages are identified using one or more of a web crawler and a search engine.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein valid in-link keywords associated with the web page are updated as the in-link keyword associated with web pages are identified.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein out-link keyword web pages are identified using href data.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the href data associated with an image is excluded from keywords lists.

16. The method of claim 1 , further comprising ranking the collected keywords according to respective link weights.

17. Apparatus comprising a memory for storing software instructions and a processor for executing the software instructions, wherein the software instructions when executed by the process cause the apparatus to perform a method for assigning keywords to a web page to form thereby a set of web page representative keywords, the method comprising:

identifying self keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified self keywords, the self keywords comprising keyword data from the web page;

identifying in-link keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified in-link keywords, the in-link keywords comprising keyword data from other web pages including a link to the web page;

identifying out-link keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified out-link keywords, the out-link keywords comprising keyword data from other web pages having a link to said other web pages from the web page;

extracting, from each of the sets of identified self, in-link and out-link keywords, a plurality of potential keyword phrases, each keyword phrase comprising at least two keywords within a respective set of keywords;

evaluating each of the identified keywords in each of the set and extracted keyword phrases according to a reference function to determine thereby valid keywords and keyword phrases;

assigning weights to each of the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to form a set of weighted keywords and keyword phrases associated with the web page, wherein each of the valid in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases is assigned a weight according to a ranking of a respective source web page; generating a rank ordered of the valid keywords using one or more of count, unique count and weighted unique count heuristic functions; and

combining, in the rank order, the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to form a set of web page representative keywords and keyword phrases associated with the web page separated by first delineators and stored in a memory.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the apparatus comprises a server in communication with a plurality of networked nodes.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying self keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified self keywords, the self keywords comprising keyword data from the web page;

identifying in-link keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified in-link keywords, the in-link keywords comprising keyword data from other web pages including a link to the web page;

identifying out-link keywords associated with the web page to form thereby a set of identified out-link keywords, the out-link keywords comprising keyword data from other web pages having a link to said other web pages from the web page;

extracting, from each of the sets of identified self, in-link and out-link keywords, a plurality of potential keyword phrases, each keyword phrase comprising at least two keywords within a respective set of keywords;

evaluating each of the identified keywords in each of the set and extracted keyword phrases according to a reference function to determine thereby valid keywords and keyword phrases;

assigning weights to each of the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to form a set of weighted keywords and keyword phrases associated with the web page, wherein each of the valid in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases is assigned a weight according to a ranking of a respective source web page; generating a rank ordered of the valid keywords using one or more of count, unique count and weighted unique count heuristic functions; and

combining, in the rank order, the valid self, in-link and out-link keywords and keyword phrases to form a set of web page representative keywords and keyword phrases associated with the web page separated by first delineators and stored in a memory.