Systems and methods for discovery and tracking of obscured web-based advertisements
Systems and methods are provided for discovering advertisements on publisher web pages and for determining whether the advertisements are obscured by other content on the web pages. An advertisement tracking and discovery system may use web crawler applications to explore multiple publisher websites. The web crawler applications may gather advertisement data that includes information associated with detected advertisements, placement pathways by which the advertisements were placed on the publisher web pages, and obscuration information for the detected advertisements. Obscured advertisements that have been detected may be ignored during advertisement tracking and discovery operations or obscuration information may be stored and provided with other advertisement information for the obscured advertisements. The advertisement data may be aggregated and formatted to be provided to a user. The provided data may include advertisement screenshots and web page screenshots containing the advertisements.
1. A system, comprising:
computing equipment including processing circuitry configured to:
detect an electronic advertisement included in a web page that has been loaded by a web browser;
determine, at a plurality of test points each corresponding to a pixel coordinate within the electronic advertisement, whether an expected value of the electronic advertisement for that pixel coordinate is a visible element of the web page at that pixel coordinate; and
determine whether the electronic advertisement is obscured by a digital element of the web page based on the determination of whether the expected value is the visible element.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine, if the expected value of the electronic advertisement is not the visible element at a selected one of the plurality of test points, whether the visible element at that test point is an acceptable obscuring element.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine a clickable location on the electronic advertisement based on a selected one of the plurality of test points at which the electronic advertisement is the visible element.
4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising user interface equipment configured to provide a web-based user interface portal update or a user alert notification responsive to the determination of whether the electronic advertisement is obscured.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to capture, if the electronic advertisement is not obscured, a screenshot of the electronic advertisement.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to capture, if the electronic advertisement is obscured, a screenshot of the web page including the electronic advertisement.
7. A method, comprising, with advertisement discovery equipment:
detecting an electronic advertisement included in a web page that has been loaded by a web browser;
obtaining, at each of a plurality of pixels within a boundary of the electronic advertisement, a visible element of the web page;
obtaining, at each of the plurality of pixels, an expected element of the electronic advertisement;
determining, at each of the plurality of pixels, whether the obtained visible element is the same as the obtained expected element;
determining an obscuration score for the electronic advertisement based on a number of the plurality of pixels at which the obtained visible element is the same as the obtained expected element; and
determining whether the electronic advertisement is obscured based on the obscuration score.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein determining whether the electronic advertisement is obscured comprises determining whether at least one additional electronic advertisement at least partially overlaps the electronic advertisement.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein determining whether the electronic advertisement is obscured based on the obscuration score comprises determining whether the electronic advertisement is obscured based on a comparison of the obscuration score to a threshold.
10. The method of claim 7 , wherein determining the obscuration score comprises:
in response to determining that, at a particular one of the plurality of pixels, the obtained visible element is not the same as the obtained expected element, generating an obscured advertisement indicator for that pixel; and
determining a ratio of obscured pixels to a total number of test points based on a number of pixels for which the obscured advertisement indicator was generated.
11. The method of claim 7 , wherein, when it is determined that the electronic advertisement is obscured, determining, with the advertisement discovery equipment, that a screenshot of the electronic advertisement should not be captured.
12. The method of claim 7 , wherein, when it is determined that the electronic advertisement is obscured, generating, with the advertisement discovery equipment, an obscured advertisement flag.
13. The method of claim 7 , wherein, when it is determined that the electronic advertisement is obscured, capturing, with the advertisement discovery equipment, a screenshot of the web page containing the obscured advertisement.
14. The method of claim 7 , wherein, when it is determined that the electronic advertisement is not obscured, capturing, with the advertisement discovery equipment, a screenshot of the electronic advertisement.
15. The method of claim 7 , wherein, when it is determined that the electronic advertisement is not obscured, capturing, with the advertisement discovery equipment, a screenshot of the web page containing the electronic advertisement.
16. The method of claim 7 , further comprising determining, with the advertisement discovery equipment, a placement pathway by which the electronic advertisement was placed on the web page.
17. A method, comprising, with advertisement discovery equipment:
detecting an electronic advertisement included in a web page that has been loaded by a web browser;
obtaining, at each of a plurality of pixels within a boundary of the electronic advertisement, a visible element of the web page;
obtaining, at each of the plurality of pixels, an expected element of the electronic advertisement;
determining, at each of the plurality of pixels, whether the obtained visible element is the same as the obtained expected element;
determining an obscuration score for the electronic advertisement based on a number of the plurality of pixels at which the obtained visible element is the same as the obtained expected element; and
determining whether to capture a screenshot of the electronic advertisement based on the obscuration score.
18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising, with the advertisement discovery equipment, capturing a screenshot of the electronic advertisement when the obscuration score is below a threshold.
19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising, with the advertisement discovery equipment:
capturing a screenshot of the web page including at least a portion of the electronic advertisement when the obscuration score is above a threshold.
20. The method of claim 17 , further comprising, with the advertisement discovery equipment, determining a placement pathway by which an obscuring element that obscures the electronic advertisement was placed on the web when the obscuration score is above a threshold.