EP2013780A2 - Systemes et procedes permettant de realiser des recherches dans des domaines verticaux - Google Patents

Systemes et procedes permettant de realiser des recherches dans des domaines verticaux

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Publication number
EP2013780A2
EP2013780A2 EP07755356A EP07755356A EP2013780A2 EP 2013780 A2 EP2013780 A2 EP 2013780A2 EP 07755356 A EP07755356 A EP 07755356A EP 07755356 A EP07755356 A EP 07755356A EP 2013780 A2 EP2013780 A2 EP 2013780A2
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
vertical
collections
collection
search query
score
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP07755356A
Other languages
German (de)
English (en)
Other versions
EP2013780A4 (fr
Inventor
Randy Adams
Paul Pedersen
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
SearchMe Inc
Original Assignee
SearchMe Inc
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority claimed from US11/404,687 external-priority patent/US20070244863A1/en
Priority claimed from US11/404,620 external-priority patent/US20070244862A1/en
Application filed by SearchMe Inc filed Critical SearchMe Inc
Publication of EP2013780A2 publication Critical patent/EP2013780A2/fr
Publication of EP2013780A4 publication Critical patent/EP2013780A4/fr
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/30—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of unstructured textual data
    • G06F16/33—Querying
    • G06F16/332—Query formulation
    • G06F16/3322—Query formulation using system suggestions
    • G06F16/3323—Query formulation using system suggestions using document space presentation or visualization, e.g. category, hierarchy or range presentation and selection
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
    • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
    • G06F16/903—Querying
    • G06F16/9032—Query formulation
    • G06F16/90324—Query formulation using system suggestions

Definitions

  • the present invention relates generally to information search and retrieval. More specifically, systems and methods are disclosed for improving Internet searches using vertical domains.
  • the web creates new challenges for information retrieval.
  • the amount of information on the web is growing rapidly.
  • search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, allow users to search and retrieve information.
  • These conventional search engines are horizontal in nature. They index the entire web. Then, search queries provided by users are searched against this index and the most relevant results are returned.
  • search terms often retrieve unintended categories of documents. For example, the word "tiger" can mean the carnivorous animals that are only found in parts of Asia.
  • the top responses included a link to the computer peripherals store TigerDirect.com, a link to the "Save the Tiger Fund,” a link to the Macintosh OS X tiger operating system, a link to "Tiger Haven” (a sanctuary for lions, tigers, and jaguars), a link to the Official Website for Tiger Woods, as well as an advertisement to search for "tigers" on eBay.com.
  • TigerDirect.com a link to the "Save the Tiger Fund”
  • Macintosh OS X tiger operating system a link to "Tiger Haven” (a sanctuary for lions, tigers, and jaguars)
  • a link to the Official Website for Tiger Woods as well as an advertisement to search for "tigers” on eBay.com.
  • dmoz has collected millions of sites which are then classified into thousands of categories. These categories are arranged in a hierarchical fashion.
  • Figure 1 illustrates top level categories (e.g., database 102) for dmoz. Each category is essentially a database of documents limited to one or more particular subjects. Searches may be restricted to any one of these specific directories. Although dmoz limits searches to specific categories, the hierarchical user interface is inconvenient.
  • search engines such as looksmart and Yahoo! provide a flat non-hierarchical listing of categories of topics.
  • the drawback with such approaches is that it presupposes that the user actually knows which category a particular search query should be directed towards. But the user often has no idea what category to search. Should one search for questions about gardens in the "food category” or the "home living” category? Should golf shoes be searched in “style”, “sports” or “clothing”? Does the "finance” category cover mutual funds, given that there is a wholly separate “mutual funds” category?
  • the drawback with portals such as looksmart and Excite! is that there is no effective way to communicate to the portal which category to search, prior to conducting that actual search.
  • the present invention provides vertical suggestions in response to user input.
  • this input is by way of a keyboard or other data entry device.
  • a user enters letters 0 and/or words on the data entry device, and the system converts these letters and/or words into one or more queries for candidate vertical collections.
  • the system evaluates the candidate vertical collections and returns a list of names of relevant candidate vertical collections. The user may then continue the interaction by selecting one of the suggested candidate vertical collections.
  • the system will then search the selected vertical collection and return a list of 5 documents from that selected vertical collection that are relevant to the user input.
  • the graphical user interface comprises a prompt field for obtaining a vertical search query from a user as well as a display field for displaying a plurality of names.
  • Each name in the plurality of names represents a vertical collection in a plurality of 0 vertical collections.
  • the plurality of names in the display field is automatically populated, at a time when the user is still entering additional characters in the prompt field, as a function of one or more terms entered by the user in the prompt field.
  • each respective name in the plurality of names in the display field is displayed as a graphic having a size that is a function of a vertical search query based 5 relevance of the vertical collection represented by the respective name. For example, in some embodiments, a first graphic in the display field has a larger size than a second graphic in the display field when the first graphic represents a first vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections that is more relevant to the vertical search query than a second vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections that is represented by the second graphic. 0 In some embodiments, each name in the plurality of names in the display field is displayed as a graphic having a visual indicia.
  • the visual indicia of a respective graphic displayed in the display field is determined by a relevance of the vertical collection that is represented by the respective graphic. In some embodiments, this visual indicia is size or color.
  • each vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections is located on a remote server and comprises documents that relate to a particular category.
  • the graphical user interface is run as an application within a network accessible browser.
  • the plurality of names in the display field is re-populated each time one or more characters is entered by the user in the prompt field by communicating the contents of the prompt field to a remote server after the one or more characters is entered by the user.
  • a new plurality of names is received from the remote server to display in the display field as a function of the contents of the prompt field communicated to the remote server.
  • the contents of the prompt field are sent to a remote server after each character is typed into the prompt field by a user.
  • the contents of the prompt field are sent to a remote server when an end of string signal is detected.
  • the vertical search query comprises a single character.
  • the vertical search query comprises a plurality of terms separated from each other by one or more predicate conditions (e.g., AND, OR, NOT).
  • the computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium and a computer program mechanism embedded therein.
  • the computer program mechanism comprises instructions for receiving a vertical search query from a user of the client computer system, instructions for communicating the vertical search query to a remote computer, and instructions for receiving a plurality of names from the remote computer. Each name in the plurality of names represents a vertical collection in a plurality of vertical collections. Each vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections has a relevance to the vertical search query.
  • the computer program product further comprises instructions for displaying the plurality of names at a time when the user is still entering additional characters into the vertical search query.
  • each respective name in the plurality of names is displayed as a graphic having a size that is a function of a relevance of the vertical collection represented by the respective name.
  • a first graphic that is displayed has a larger size than a second graphic when the first graphic represents a first vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections that is more relevant to the vertical search query than a second vertical collection that is represented by the second graphic.
  • each name in the plurality of names is displayed as a graphic having a visual indicia and the visual indicia of a respective graphic is determined by a vertical search query based relevance of the vertical collection represented by the respective graphic.
  • the visual indicia is size or color.
  • Still another embodiment of the present invention provides a computer comprising a central processing unit and a memory coupled to the central processing unit.
  • the memory stores instructions for receiving a vertical search query from a user of the computer, instructions for communicating the vertical search query to a remote computer, and instructions for receiving a plurality of names from the remote computer.
  • Each name in the plurality of names represents a vertical collection in a plurality of vertical collections.
  • Each vertical collection has a relevance to the vertical search query.
  • the memory further stores instructions for displaying the plurality of names at a time when the user is still entering additional characters into the vertical search query.
  • Yet another embodiment of the present invention comprises a digital signal embodied on a carrier wave comprising a plurality of names. Each name in the plurality of names represents a vertical collection in a plurality of vertical collections. Each vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections has a relevance to a vertical search query.
  • the digital signal embodied on a carrier wave further comprises a plurality of scores. Each score in the plurality of scores corresponds to a name in the plurality of names. Each score represents a relevance of a vertical collection in the plurality of vertical collections to the vertical search query.
  • the vertical search query comprises a single character.
  • the vertical search query comprises a plurality of terms, where terms in the plurality of terms are optionally separated from each other by one or more predicate conditions.
  • Figure 1 illustrates the dmoz web site portal in accordance with the prior art.
  • Figure 2 illustrates a client computer submitting a query to a vertical engine server in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figures 3A-3F illustrate a progressive search of vertical categories relevant to the vertical search query "tiger" as each character of the vertical search query is entered into a prompt in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figure 4 illustrates a vertical engine server 400 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figure 5 illustrates the architecture of a vertical index in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figure 6 illustrates an exemplary method in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
  • the present invention differs from known search engines.
  • vertical collections are used rather than using an index that represents the entire Internet.
  • a "vertical collection” comprises a set of documents (e.g., URLs, websites, etc.) that relate to a common category.
  • web pages pertaining to sailboats could constitute a "sailboat" vertical collection.
  • Web pages pertaining to car racing could constitute a "car racing” collection.
  • Users search a vertical collection so that only documents relevant to the category represented by the vertical collection are returned to the user.
  • the present invention provides systems and methods for helping a searcher identify the right vertical collection to search.
  • a vertical search query is submitted by a client computer 100 to a vertical engine server 110.
  • vertical engine server 110 identifies vertical collections in a vertical collection index 442 that are relevant to the search query.
  • the names of the candidate vertical collections are then returned to client computer 100.
  • the user selects one of the vertical collections and proceeds to search the vertical collection with the original search expression or new search expressions.
  • FIGs 3A-3F screen shots of candidate vertical collections returned by an embodiment of vertical engine server 110 are provided as Figures 3A-3F so that the advantages of the present invention can be better understood.
  • a user is provided with a graphic that includes a prompt 302.
  • prompt 302 is present, there is no "search" toggle.
  • v- cloud 304 displaying a collection of suggested vertical collections. The identity of the vertical collections listed in v-cloud 304 is wholly a function of the contents of prompt 302.
  • the contents of prompt 302 are polled such that any time an additional keystroke, or in some instances a plurality of keystrokes, is entered into prompt 302, the contents of prompt 302 is treated as a vertical search query for which a new set of vertical collections is retrieved using vertical engine server 110. Then, v-cloud 304 is repopulated with the new set of vertical collections. In this way, v-cloud 304 always contains the most relevant vertical categories as the user adds additional characters into prompt 302. When the user selects one of the vertical collections in v-cloud 304, the corresponding vertical collection is searched using the vertical search query at prompt 302.
  • FIG. 3 A a user begins to build this search expression using prompt 302 by first entering the letter "t.” Before the user enters the character "i" at prompt 302, vertical engine server 110 searches vertical collection index 120 for the vertical collections most relevant to the vertical search query "t". Vertical engine server 110 then communicates the identity of these most relevant vertical collections to client computer 100 where they are used to populate v-cloud 304.
  • v-cloud 304 includes the vertical collection “apparel” because “t” is prominent in the expression t-shirt, the vertical collection “cellular phone” because “t” is prominent in name of the cell phone company T-Mobile, the vertical collection “television programs” because “t” forms part of the expression “t.v.”, etc.
  • v-cloud 304 includes the vertical collection "calculators” because “ti” stands for the calculator manufacture Texas Instruments as well as the vertical collections "chemistry” and “elements” because "ti” is the chemical symbol of the element titanium.
  • vertical engine server 110 searches vertical collection index 120 for the vertical collections most relevant to the vertical search query "tig”. Vertical engine server 110 then communicates the identity of these most relevant vertical collections to client computer 100 where they are used to repopulate v-cloud 304.
  • v-cloud 304 responsive to the vertical search query "tig" at prompt 302, v-cloud 304 includes the vertical collection "insurance” because "tig” stands for the TIG insurance company. V-cloud 304 also includes the vertical collection "welding" because of the similarity between the vertical search query "tig” and a common form of welding known as tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding.
  • TIG tungsten inert gas
  • v-cloud 304 includes the vertical collection "actors” because of the similaractor Tige Andrews, the vertical collection “boating” because of the Tige boat manufacturer, the vertical collection "shoes” because of the bull dog character used in Buster Brown comic strips associated with the Brown Shoe Company, as well as the vertical collection "Texas” because Tige canyon creak is located in Texas.
  • Figure 3E when the user completes the expression "tiger” by typing an
  • vertical engine server 110 searches vertical collection index 120 for the vertical collections most relevant to the vertical search query "tiger". Vertical engine server 110 then communicates the identity of these most relevant vertical collections to client computer 100 where they are used to repopulate v-cloud 304.
  • v-cloud 304 includes the vertical collection "Chinese astrology” because of the tiger birth sign in Chinese astrology, the vertical collection "golf because of the famous golfer, Tiger Woods, the vertical collection “Operating Systems” because of the Tiger Macintosh operating system, the vertical collection "seafood”, because tiger shrimp is a form of seafood, and the vertical collection "wild animals” because a tiger, of course, is also a wild animal.
  • each of the advertisements provided by vertical search engine 110 pertain to golf once the user has selected the golf vertical collection. Thus, the user is far more likely to respond to the advertisements.
  • the present invention automatically provides a user with a list of candidate vertical collections that can be used as the target of a user directed query.
  • a user can search a target vertical collection for documents related to a search query with a minimal amount of effort needed to select the target vertical collection from among a list of candidate vertical collections.
  • FIG. 4 illustrates a vertical engine server 110 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.
  • vertical engine server 110 is implemented using one or more computer systems 400, as schematically shown in Figure 4.
  • computer systems 400 as schematically shown in Figure 4.
  • a front end set of servers may be used to receive and distribute vertical search queries among a set of back-end servers that actually process the user queries.
  • system 400 as shown in Figure 4 would be one such back-end server.
  • Computer system 400 will typically have a user interface 404 (including a display 406 and a keyboard 408), one or more processing units (CPU's) 402, a network or other communications interface 410, memory 414, and one or more communication busses 412 for interconnecting these components.
  • Memory 414 can include high speed random access memory and can also include non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices (not shown).
  • Memory 414 can include mass storage that is remotely located from the central processing unit(s) 402.
  • Memory 414 preferably stores: an operating system 416 that includes procedures for handling various basic system services and for performing hardware dependent tasks;
  • a network communication module 418 that is used for connecting system 400 to various client computers 100 (Fig. 1) and possibly to other servers or computers via one or more communication networks, such as, the Internet, other wide area networks, local area networks ⁇ e.g., a local wireless network can connect the client computers 100 to computer 400), metropolitan area networks, and so on; a query handler 420 for receiving a vertical search query from a client computer 100; a search engine 422 for searching a selected vertical collection 450 for documents 466 related to a vertical search query and for forming a group of ranked documents that are related to the search query; a vertical search engine 424, for searching vertical index 442 for one or more vertical index lists 444 that are relevant to a given vertical search query; a vertical index construction module 460 for constructing vertical index 442; and an index construction module 464 for constructing a document index 462 from a set of documents 466.
  • a query handler 420 for receiving a vertical search query from a client computer 100
  • a search engine 422 for searching
  • Index construction module 464 constructs a document index 462 by scanning documents 466 for relevant search terms.
  • An illustration of document index 462 is illustrated below:
  • document index 462 is constructed by index construction module 464 using conventional indexing techniques. Exemplary indexing techniques are disclosed in United States Patent publication 20060031195, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
  • a given term may be associated with a particular document when the term appears more than a threshold number of times in the document. In some embodiments, a given term may be associated with a particular document when the term achieves more than a threshold score.
  • Criteria that can be used to score a document relative to a candidate term include, but are not limited to, (i) a number of times the candidate term appears in an upper portion of the document, (ii) a normalized average position of the candidate term within the document, (iii) a number of characters in the candidate term, and (iv) a number of times the document is referenced by other documents.
  • High scoring documents are associated with the term.
  • Document index 462 stores the list of terms, a document identifier uniquely identifying each document associated with terms in the list of terms, and the scores of these documents.
  • between zero and 100 documents 466 are associated with a search term, between zero and 1000 documents 466 are associated with a search term, between zero and 10,000 documents 466 are associated with a search term, or more than 10,000 documents 466 are associated with a search term with document index 462.
  • a given document 466 is associated with between zero and 10 search terms, between zero and 100 search terms, between zero and 1000 search terms, between zero and 10,000 search terms, or more than 10,000 search terms.
  • documents 466 are understood to be any type of media that can be indexed and retrieved by a search engine, including web documents, images, multimedia files, text documents, PDFs or other image formatted files, ringtones, full track media, and so forth.
  • a document 466 may have one or more pages, partitions, segments or other components, as appropriate to its content and type. Equivalently a document 466 may be referred to as a "page,” as commonly used to refer to documents on the Internet. No limitation as to the scope of the invention is implied by the use of the generic term "documents.”
  • Vertical collections 450 are constructed using documents in document index 462 that pertain to a particular non-hierarchical category. For example, one vertical collection 450 may be constructed from documents indexed by document index 462 that pertain to movies, another vertical collection 450 may be constructed from documents indexed by document index 462 that pertain to sports, and so forth. Vertical collections 450 can be constructed, merged, or split in a relatively straightforward manner by the vertical engine server system operator. In some embodiments, there are hundreds of vertical collections 450 set up in this manner. In some embodiments, there are thousands of vertical collections 450 set up in this manner.
  • each vertical collection 450 is inverted. Recall from Figure 4, that each vertical collection 450 has the form:
  • V l Vertical collection
  • each Docld in the vertical collection 450 further includes a document quality score assigned by index construction module 464. Inversion of each of the vertical collections 450 and the merging of each of these inverted vertical collections leads to an inverted document- vertical index having the following data structure:
  • each given document 466 in document index 462 a list of vertical collections 450 associated with the given document are provided in the inverted document-vertical index. There can be several vertical collections 450 associated with any given document. Further, there is no requirement that each document 466 be associated with a unique set of vertical collections 450.
  • vertical index 442 By substituting the document identifiers in document index 462 with the corresponding vertical collections associated with such document identifiers as set forth in the inverted document- vertical index. In one approach, this is done by scanning document index 462 on a term wise basis, and collecting the set of vertical collections 450 that are associated with the documents that are, themselves, associated with each term as set forth in the inverted document- vertical index. For example, consider a term 1 in the exemplary document index 462 presented above. According to document index 462, term 1 is associated with docIDu, ... , docIDi x .
  • the inverted document-vertical index is consulted to determine which vertical collections 450 are associated with the respective docIDj.
  • Each of these vertical collections 450 are then associated with term 1 in order to construct a vertical index list 444 for term 1.
  • a vertical index list 444 is a list of vertical collection identifiers of vertical collections 450 sharing a definable attribute (e.g., "term 1"). If term 1 was "vacation,” than vertical index list 444 contains the identifiers of the vertical collections 450 holding documents containing the word "vacation.”
  • the predicate defining the list, "term 1" in the above example, is referred to as the "head term.”
  • vertical index 442 is constructed. There may be a large number of terms in the collection of terms. For example, in some embodiments, the collection of terms contains all combinations of character strings between 1 and 10 ASCII characters in length, all combinations of character strings between between 1 and 20 ASCII characters in length, all combinations of character strings between 1 and 30 ASCII characters in length, or all combinations of character strings between between 1 and 50 ASCII characters in length.
  • Vertical index 442 comprises vertical index lists 444, along with an efficient process for locating and returning the vertical index list 444 corresponding to a given attribute (search term). For example, a vertical index 442 can be defined containing vertical index lists 444 for all the words appearing in a collection. Vertical index 442 stores, for each given word in the collection, a vertical index list 444 of those vertical collections 450. Each such vertical collection 450 in the vertical index list 444 for the given word holds at least some documents 466 containing the given word.
  • vertical index 442 comprises a hash lookup table and a vertical index list storage component.
  • the hash lookup table contains pointers or file offsets that pinpoint the location of an individual vertical index list 444.
  • a hash of a given head term (search term) provides the correct offset to corresponding list of vertical collections 450 that hold documents 466 for the given head term. For example, consider the case in which the head term is "vacation.” The head term is hashed to, in this example, give the offset 03.
  • a table lookup at offset 03 in vertical index 442 gives the list of identifiers [vertkbi, vertld32, vertld33, vertld 34 , ... ] that correspond to the head term "vacation.”
  • Each identifier in the set [vertld 3 i, vertld 32 , vertld 33 , vertld 34 , ... ] corresponds to a vertical collection 450 that contains documents with the "vacation" head term.
  • the vertical index lists 444 are shown as having different lengths because that is the usual case.
  • a term specific score is associated with each vertical identifier in each vertical index list 444 as described in more detail below.
  • the vertical index 442 includes, for each respective head term in a collection of head terms, the list of vertical collections 450 having documents that contain the respective head term. To optimize vertical index 442, additional steps are taken to rank each vertical collection 450 referenced in each respective vertical index list 444 so that only the most significant vertical collections 450 are returned for any given vertical search query.
  • each vertical collection (v) listed in the vertical index 444 for the respective head term is scored with the respect to the head term to give a score(t,v).
  • the score for a vertical collection 450, given a specific head term score(t,v) can be computed many different ways. In some embodiments, the score for a vertical collection 450, given a specific head term (score(t,v)), is computed by summing over all documents 466 in the vertical collection as follows:
  • score(t,v) [ £ score(t,d)] • w(d,v) (I) deV
  • score(t,d) is the score for a document in the vertical collection 450
  • w(d,v) is some weight assigned to the vertical collection 450 that contains the document.
  • w(d,v) is a weight that upweights those vertical collections 450 that have the highest frequency of the given head term. In other words, in such embodiments, w(d,v) is higher for a first vertical collection 450 that has documents with a higher incidence of head term (t) than a second vertical collection 450 that has documents with a lower incidence of head term (t). In some embodiments, w(d,v) is a weight that upweights those vertical collections 450 that have a high prevalence of the head term in the highest ranked documents within such vertical collections 450.
  • w(d,v) is higher for a first vertical collection 450 that has a higher incidence of head term (t) within high ranked documents 466 of the first vertical collection 450 than a second vertical collection 450 that has a lower incidence of head term (t) within high ranked documents 466 of the second vertical collection 450.
  • high ranked documents 466 refer to those documents that have received a high rank by index construction module 464. Methods by which index construction module 464 assigns a high rank to certain documents 466 are well known in the art.
  • One criterion for ranking a document 466 is for example, to asses how many other documents reference the given document 466.
  • w(d,v) for a given vertical collection 450 is a function of the popularity of the vertical collection 450, an aggregation of the link density for documents 466 within the vertical collection 450, or any other criterion that is normally used to evaluate the quality of documents 466. In some embodiments
  • f(d,t) is the number of times the head term (t) occurs in document (d) of vertical collection 450
  • f(N) is a function of the number of vertical collections 450 accessible to vertical search engine 424 (whether such vertical collections are stored in memory 414 and/or accessible via network interface 410).
  • f(N) is simply M v , the number of vertical collections 450 stored in memory 414 and/or available via Network interface 410).
  • f(N) is log(M v ) or some other function of M v such as the root of M v .
  • v(t) is the number of vertical collections 450 containing head term (t).
  • v(t) is the number of vertical collections 450 that are in the vertical index list 442 for head term (t).
  • a and B are both equal to 1 in some embodiments. In other embodiments, A and B are the same or different constant numbers. In some embodiments A is larger than B. In some embodiments A is smaller than B. In some embodiments A is equal to B. Other formulas for score(t,d) are possible. For example, in some embodiments,
  • score(t,d) f(d,t). (Ill) where f(d,t) is the number of times the head term (t) occurs in document (d) of vertical collection 450.
  • score(t,v) as expressed in either formula (IV) or (V) is part of an overall score (score ov ) for a vertical collection 450 given a term (t) having the form:
  • scor ⁇ 2 is either score(t,v) of formula (IV) and (V) and score i(t,v) has the form:
  • f(v,t) is the number of documents 466 in vertical collection (v) containing term (t)
  • f(N) is a function of the number of vertical collections tracked by memory 414 (e. g. , N, the number of vertical collections tracked by memory 414, log(N), root of N, etc.)
  • v(t) is the number of vertical collections 450 in the vertical index list 444 of term (t)
  • C and D are constants.
  • C and D are both equal to 1 in some embodiments. In other embodiments, C and D are the same or different constant numbers. In some embodiments C is larger than D. In some embodiments C is smaller than D.
  • ⁇ i and ⁇ 2 are terms that can be independently adjusted.
  • ⁇ i and ⁇ 2 are constant values. These values can be the same or different.
  • ⁇ j is zero.
  • ⁇ i is a constant value that is less than ⁇ 2 .
  • ⁇ i is a constant value that is greater than ⁇ 2.
  • the method details the steps taken by vertical search engine 424 to interactively provide a user with a recommended list of vertical collections 450 as the user builds a vertical search query.
  • Step 602. a vertical search query is received from client computer 100.
  • a vertical search query comprises a list of keywords, possibly joined by the Boolean operators AND, OR, as well as NOT, and optionally grouped with parentheses or quotes. Examples of vertical search queries include: (i) "Florida discount vacations," (ii) "The President of the United States,” and "(car OR automobile) AND (transmission OR brakes)."
  • a vertical search query is the contents of prompt 302 at a given time point.
  • the vertical search query is in the form of an http request.
  • Step 604. a determination is made as to whether a user has selected a vertical collection 450.
  • a user can, for example, select a vertical collection 450 at any time by selecting any of the vertical collections listed in v-cloud 304.
  • no vertical collections 450 are listed in v-cloud 304 when prompt 302 is empty and thus, at the stage when prompt 302 is empty, the user cannot select a vertical collection 450 in such embodiments.
  • v-cloud 304 is populated with popular and/or sponsored vertical collections 450 when prompt 302 is empty. If a user has not selected a vertical category (604-No), then control passes to step 606. If a user has selected a vertical category (604- Yes), then control passes to step 620.
  • Step 606 the vertical search query is decomposed into atomic vertical search queries.
  • An atomic vertical search query consists of a single term or predicate condition.
  • the vertical search query "(car OR automobile) AND (transmission OR brakes)” includes the single terms “car”, “automobile”, “transmission”, “brakes” and the predicate conditions of precedence “( )", AND, as well as OR.
  • Step 608 In typical embodiments, only one of the atomic vertical search queries in the vertical search query will be new or altered. Thus, in step 608, the atomic vertical search query that is new or has been altered is first identified. To illustrate, consider the case where the vertical search query in the last instance of step 608 was “car OR auto” whereas in the current instance of step 608, the vertical search query is "car OR automobile". In step 606, the vertical search query "car OR automobile” is broken down to the atomic vertical search queries "car” and "automobile.” The atomic vertical search query "car” remains unchanged relative to the last instance of step 608 and therefore is not hashed in the new instance of step 608.
  • the hash of "auto” from the previous instance of step 608 is used and a cumulative hash is performed with the additional characters "mobile” in order to arrive at the full hash for "automobile” in the current instance of step 608.
  • such cumulative hashing is not performed. Cumulative hashing is preferable in some embodiments so that recommended verticals collections 450 can be returned to client computer 100 before the user has had a chance to enter many more keystrokes into prompt 302.
  • any techniques that will speed up the computation of steps 606 through 612 are preferred.
  • atomic vertical search queries are not hashed.
  • vertical index 442 is not ordered by the hash values of atomic vertical search queries.
  • more than one atomic vertical search query within the vertical search query is new or has been altered.
  • each new or altered atomic vertical search query is separately hashed in step 608. If a precursor expression is available for any of these altered atomic vertical search queries, the hash of such precursor expressions is used to speed up the hash of the corresponding altered atomic vertical search query.
  • Step 610 the vertical index list 444 for each new or altered atomic vertical search query in the vertical query is identified.
  • vertical index 442 is a hash table, such as illustrated in Figure 5, this operation is a simple hash lookup using the respective hash of each new or altered atomic vertical search query.
  • a hash is not used.
  • vertical index 442 is some other form of data structure that contains vertical indices 444, such as an array, list, stack, queue, tree, or database. Such data structures are described in Brookshear, Computer Science, 2003, Addison- Wesley, New York, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
  • the vertical indices 444 that correspond to atomic vertical search queries that are not new in the vertical search query are already known from previous instances of step 610 and are therefore not obtained in successive instances of step 610.
  • the vertical index 444 of each atomic vertical search query in the vertical search query is identified in each instance of step 610. Regardless of the embodiment, upon completion of step 610, the vertical index list 444 of each atomic vertical search query in the vertical search query is identified.
  • Step 612 a list of recommended vertical collections 450 for the vertical search query from client computer 100 is composed.
  • step 612 simply involves extracting each of the names of the vertical collections 450 referenced in the vertical index 444 for the atomic vertical search term that was identified an instance of step 610.
  • the vertical search term includes more than one atomic vertical search term, more work is required.
  • the names of the vertical collections 450 for each atomic vertical search term are first identified using the processes described above. So, if the atomic vertical search terms are termj and term2, this operation results in the identification of the following:
  • each list of vertical collections 450 is taken in some embodiments of the present invention. This means that only those vertical collections 450 that are common to both vertical index lists 444 are included in the list of recommended vertical collections 450 in such embodiments, hi some embodiments, in addition to the requirement that each recommended vertical collection be present in both index lists 444, each recommended vertical collection must have a minimum relevancy score(v,t).
  • the union of the vertical collections 450 in the two vertical index lists 444 for the two search terms is taken. That is, vertical collections 450 that are in either vertical index list 444 are selected for inclusion in the list of names of candidate vertical collections 450 that are send back to client computer 100 in response to a vertical search query.
  • the relevancy score for each vertical collection 450 in each vertical index list 444 is also used to determine which vertical collections 450 are selected for the list of names of candidate vertical collections 450. For example, in some embodiments, those vertical collections 450 that are represented in the vertical index list 444 of both atomic vertical search terms are summed.
  • VCi5o(scorei5o, ti), VC] 70 (scoreno,ti)» VCi 7 5(scorei 75 , ti) terni 2 VCi5i(scorei5i, a), VCi 70 (score ⁇ o,t2), VCi 75 (scorers, 12)
  • each of the scores may be any of the scores described with respect to formulas (I) through (VII) above, or some other score that assigns vertical collection quality or relevance of a vertical collection to a given search term.
  • the list of recommended vertical collections 450 contains a maximum number of vertical collections 450. For some search expressions, the number of vertical collections 450 identified does not exceed this maximum. However, for some search expressions, the number of vertical collections 450 identified does exceed the maximum possible number of recommended vertical collections 450.
  • the term- based relevancy score associated with each vertical collection 450 is used to determine which vertical collections are included in the recommendation list of vertical collections for a given vertical search query. Only top scoring vertical collections 450 are selected for the list. Steps 614-6 J 8. The lookup performed by steps 608 through 612 is designed to be fast.
  • a recommended list of vertical collections 450 is returned to client computer 100 between each character stroke entered by a user into prompt 302.
  • client computer 100 sends a new vertical search query each time the user enters a new character into prompt 302 of Figure 3.
  • client computer sends a new vertical search query each time an end of string signal is detected by client computer 100.
  • Such an end of string signal is detected by client computer 100 in some embodiments when a pause in the typing of the user is detected.
  • a check is performed to determine whether a new vertical query has been received from client computer 100 (step 614). For example, in some embodiments, a determination is made as to whether a new http request has arrived from the client computer 100 with a new or revised vertical search query. If a new or revised vertical query has been received (614- Yes), control is passed back to step 604 without reporting the recommended vertical collection (step 616). If a new or revises vertical search query has not arrived (614-No) 3 then the recommended vertical collections 450 are reported to client computer 100 where they are displayed in a graphic such as v-cloud 304 (step 618). In some embodiments, the recommended vertical collections 450 are reported to client computer 100 even when a new vertical search query has arrived from client computer 100.
  • the list of recommended vertical collections that is returned to client computer 100 includes both the identity of the recommended vertical collections 450 (names) and a relevancy score for each vertical collection 450.
  • Such relevancy scores are computed, for example using any of the scoring functions described with respect to formulas (I) through (VII) above, or any other scoring function that assesses vertical collection 450 quality and/or vertical collection 450 to a given vertical search query. Then, as illustrated in Figure 3, those vertical collections that have higher scores are displayed as larger graphics than those vertical collections that have smaller relevancy scores.
  • the vertical collection “Apparel” has a higher overall relevancy score than the vertical collection "television programs.”
  • the vertical collection “Apparel” is displayed as a larger graphic than the vertical collection "television programs" in v-cloud 304.
  • other indicia can be used.
  • such vertical collections can be listed in colors selected from a color spectrum. For instance, more relevant vertical collections would be at one end of the color spectrum, say green, while less relevant vertical collections would be at the other end of the color spectrum. Also, more relevant vertical collections can be displayed in a bolder format, while less relevant vertical collections can be displayed in a less bold format.
  • Steps 620-622 Eventually, the user selects a vertical collection 450. When this occurs, the vertical search query is directed to the selected vertical collection 450. The selected vertical collection 450 is searched for those documents that are most relevant to the final vertical search query (step 620). In some embodiments, search engine 422 performs the search of the selected vertical collection 450. Then, in step 622, these high ranking documents are reported to client computer 100 where they are displayed, for example, as shown in Figure 3F.
  • Computer systems, graphical user interfaces, computer program products, and methods have been disclosed for automatically recommending vertical collections to a user who is constructing a search query.
  • the techniques are highly advantageous for several reasons.
  • the search of vertical index 442 is extremely fast. This enables vertical search engine 424 to return a list of recommended vertical collections 450 to the user between user keystroke.
  • the user can quickly see what kinds of topics are relevant to the search query and can either select one of the categories, continue to type in a search query, or in the case where uninteresting vertical collections 450 are emerging, start fresh with a new vertical search query.
  • the user can enjoy all the benefits of performing searches within a relevant vertical collection without having to navigate through hierarchical lists of categories or make a uniformed guess as to what might be the correct category to search.
  • the invention is highly advantageous because, as illustrated in Figure 3 F, the user-based selection of a vertical collection provides, coupled with the vertical search query, provides a basis for removing any ambiguity in the search query (e.g., determine whether tiger means "Tiger Woods", the Macintosh operating system, or animals) and therefore deliver meaningful and relevant advertisements and/or sponsored links.
  • the present invention can be implemented as a computer program product that comprises a computer program mechanism embedded in a computer readable storage medium.
  • the computer program product could contain the program modules shown in Figure 4. These program modules can be stored on a CD-ROM, DVD, magnetic disk storage product, or any other computer readable data or program storage product.
  • the software modules in the computer program product may also be distributed electronically, via the Internet or otherwise, by transmission of a computer data signal (in which the software modules are embedded) on a carrier wave.

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  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
  • Mathematical Physics (AREA)
  • Computational Linguistics (AREA)
  • Data Mining & Analysis (AREA)
  • General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Information Retrieval, Db Structures And Fs Structures Therefor (AREA)
  • User Interface Of Digital Computer (AREA)

Abstract

L'invention concerne une interface utilisateur graphique stockée dans une mémoire d'un ordinateur client. L'interface comprend un champ d'invite pour une interrogation de recherche verticale provenant d'un utilisateur. L'interface comprend en outre un champ permettant d'afficher une pluralité de noms. Chaque nom représente une collection verticale. La pluralité de noms est automatiquement recensée, à un moment où l'utilisateur est toujours en train d'entrer des caractères dans le champ d'invite, en fonction d'une ou plusieurs chaînes de caractères dans le champ d'invite. Un ordinateur comprend des instructions de stockage en mémoire pour recevoir une interrogation de recherche verticale, communiquer l'interrogation à un ordinateur distant et recevoir une pluralité de noms provenant de l'ordinateur distant. Chaque nom représente une collection verticale ayant une pertinence pour l'interrogation de recherche verticale. La pluralité de noms est affichée au moment où l'utilisateur est toujours en train d'entrer des caractères supplémentaires à l'intérieur de l'interrogation de recherche verticale.
EP07755356A 2006-04-13 2007-04-13 Systemes et procedes permettant de realiser des recherches dans des domaines verticaux Withdrawn EP2013780A4 (fr)

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US11/404,687 US20070244863A1 (en) 2006-04-13 2006-04-13 Systems and methods for performing searches within vertical domains
US11/404,620 US20070244862A1 (en) 2006-04-13 2006-04-13 Systems and methods for ranking vertical domains
PCT/US2007/009054 WO2007120781A2 (fr) 2006-04-13 2007-04-13 Systemes et procedes permettant de realiser des recherches dans des domaines verticaux

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JP5526396B2 (ja) * 2008-03-11 2014-06-18 クラリオン株式会社 情報検索装置、情報検索システム及び情報検索方法
CN101673272B (zh) 2008-09-08 2012-12-19 华为技术有限公司 搜索信息的方法、系统、装置及垂直搜索引擎注册的方法
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WO2007120781A3 (fr) 2008-10-30
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EP2013780A4 (fr) 2009-05-13
JP2009533767A (ja) 2009-09-17

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