Requirements of an ad distribution system
Now that we have studied the system architecture of an ad distribution network and the various components, let us look at the requirements of an ad distribution system from the viewpoint of performance. Of course, performance is of primary importance. We saw that there are multiple ways in which an ad publisher generates revenue from an ad network. CTR is the most preferred way of measuring the performance of an ad and hence that of the ad network.
Note
CTR stands for Click Through Rate. It is defined as the division of the number of clicks made on an advertisement by the total number of times the advertisement was served (impressions).
In order to deliver a good CTR, the ad being displayed needs to be close to the context of the page currently being viewed by the user. In order to derive the context, we need to run a search with the title and metadata on the page and identify the ads related to that page. Let us create a sample Solr schema for an...