Systems and methods for direct navigation to specific portion of target document

• US 20050149576A1
• Filed: 12/31/2003
• Published: 07/07/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Bharat, Krishna, Gomes, Benedict A., Marmaros, David P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,150,824 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation

Abstract

Systems and methods for direct navigation to and/or highlighting a specific portion of a target document such as query-relevant portion of the document are disclosed. The method may include generating a search result link to a search result document and generating an instruction to a client document browser to navigate directly to an intra-document portion related to the query within the search result document. The search result may include a snippet extracted from the search result document such that the instruction causes navigation directly to at least a portion of the snippet. The instruction may be an artificial anchor undefined in the search result document, e.g., designated by a preassigned artificial anchor designator. The client browser may have an artificial anchor module installed to execute the instruction to navigate directly to and optionally highlight the intra-document portion within the target document in response to the document link being selected.

Claims

1. A method for providing a search result to a user, comprising:

receiving a search query from a client device;

generating at least one search result in response to the search query, the search result being associated with a search result document link to a search result document;

generating an instruction corresponding to the search result, the instruction being to a document browser to display the search result on the client device, the instruction being to navigate directly to an intra-document portion within the search result document when the search result is selected by the user, the intra-document portion being related to the search query; and

providing the search result to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each search result includes a snippet extracted from the search result document and wherein the instruction is to navigate directly to at least a portion of the snippet within the search result document.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein at least one search result includes a plurality of snippets extracted from the search result document and wherein the instruction is to generate a plurality of frames each displaying at least a portion of at least one of the snippets within the search result document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the instruction is an intra-document link pointing to the intra-document portion within the search result document, the intra-document portion being related to the search query.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the intra-document link contains an artificial anchor undefined in the search result document.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the artificial anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the artificial anchor includes the preassigned artificial anchor designator as one of a prefix and a suffix and wherein the preassigned artificial anchor designator includes a preassigned set of text characters.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the intra-document link points to an anchor at the intra-document portion, the anchor being defined in the search result document.

9. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining whether the search result document link references an anchor defined in the search result document; and

stripping the reference to the anchor from the search result document link if the search result document link references the anchor.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the intra-document portion is at least one of text within the search result document, an image within the search result document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the search result document and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing the search result to the user includes providing a search result page, wherein the instruction is at least one of a hidden tag and an attribute on a tag in the search result page.

12. A method of linking to an intra-document portion of a target document, comprising:

generating an artificial intra-document anchor corresponding to the intra-document portion within the target document, the artificial intra-document anchor being undefined in the target document.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the artificial intra-document link is an instruction to a document browser on a client device to display the target document to navigate directly to the intra-document portion within the target document.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the artificial anchor is appended to a target document link pointing to the target document.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the artificial anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the artificial anchor includes the preassigned artificial anchor designator as one of a prefix and a suffix and wherein the preassigned artificial anchor designator includes a preassigned set of text characters.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the intra-document portion is selected from the group consisting of text within the target document, an image within the target document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the target document, and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

18. A method for providing a search result to a user, comprising:

generating at least one search result in response to a search query, each search result includes a snippet extracted from the search result document, the search result being associated with a cached link to a cached search result document; and

returning the cached search result document automatically scrolled to a portion of the cached search result document containing the snippet in response to the cached link being selected by the user.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the cached search result document is automatically scrolled to the portion containing the snippet using JavaScript.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the cached search result document is automatically scrolled to the portion containing the snippet using a named anchor defined in the cached search result document.

21. A method for navigating directly to an intra-document portion within a target document, comprising:

receiving a document link to the target document; and

executing an instruction to navigate directly to the intra-document portion within the target document in response to the document link being selected, the instruction being one of a reference to an artificial anchor appended to the document link, the artificial anchor being undefined in the target document, a hidden tag defined in the target document and an attribute on a tag defined in the target document.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the instruction is a reference to an artificial anchor, wherein the executing comprises:

determining whether the document link has an artificial anchor appended thereto; and

parsing the document link and the artificial anchor to extract artificial anchor text from the artificial anchor if the document link has an artificial anchor appended thereto.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the determining comprises:

determining whether the document link has an anchor appended thereto; and

if the document link has an anchor appended thereto, determining whether the anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the determining whether the anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator includes determining whether the anchor includes the preassigned artificial anchor designator as one of a prefix and a suffix of the anchor and wherein the preassigned artificial anchor designator includes a preassigned set of text characters.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the executing includes the highlighting the intra-document portion within the target document.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein the intra-document portion is selected from the group consisting of text within the target document, an image within the target document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the target document, and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

27. The method of claim 21, wherein the document link is a URL.

28. The method of claim 21, wherein the receiving further includes receiving a search result, the search result including the document link to the target document and at least one snippet extracted from the intra-document portion within the target document.

29. The method of claim 21, wherein the executing includes executing an instruction to display a plurality of frames, each frame displaying at least a portion of at least one of a plurality of intra-document portions within the target document in response to the document link being selected.

30. A method for navigating directly to an intra-document portion within a search result document, comprising:

receiving a search result page including at least one search result link pointing to the search result document and at least one snippet extracted from the intra-document portion within the search result document;

generating an intra-document link based on the snippet by appending an artificial anchor to the search result link, the intra-document link pointing to the intra-document portion within the search result document and the artificial anchor being undefined in the target document; and

navigating directly to the intra-document portion within the target document in response to selection of the intra-document link.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the intra-document portion is selected from the group consisting of text within the target document, an image within the target document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the target document, and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the intra-document link contains an artificial anchor, the artificial anchor including a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.

33. A client web browser, comprising:

an artificial anchor module for parsing and interpreting an artificial anchor appended to a link to a target document, the artificial anchor module being configured to navigate to the target document upon selection of the link with the artificial anchor and to search and scroll to an intra-document portion of the target document referenced by the artificial anchor, wherein the artificial anchor is undefined in the target document.

34. The client web browser of claim 33, wherein the artificial anchor comprises a preassigned artificial anchor designator and a reference to the intra-document portion of the target document.

35. A computer program product embodied on a computer-readable medium, the computer program product including instructions, which when executed by a computer system, are operable to cause the computer system to perform acts comprising:

generating at least one search result in response to receiving a search query from a user, the search result being associated with a search result document link to a search result document;

generating an instruction corresponding to the search result, the instruction being to a document browser to display the search result on the client device, the instruction being to navigate directly to the intra-document portion within the search result document when the search result is selected by the user, the intra-document portion being related to the search query; and

providing the search result to the user.

36. The computer program product of claim 35, wherein the generating the search result includes generating a snippet extracted from the search result document and wherein the instruction is to navigate directly to at least a portion of the snippet within the search result document.

37. The computer program product of claim 35, wherein the instruction is an intra-document link pointing to the intra-document portion within the search result document, the intra-document portion being related to the search query.

38. The computer program product of claim 37, wherein the intra-document link contains an artificial anchor undefined in the search result document.

39. The computer program product of claim 38, wherein the artificial anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.

40. The computer program product of claim 39, wherein the artificial anchor includes the preassigned artificial anchor designator as one of a prefix and a suffix and wherein the preassigned artificial anchor designator includes a preassigned set of text characters.

41. The computer program product of claim 37, wherein the intra-document link points to an anchor at the intra-document portion, the anchor being defined in the search result document.

42. The computer program product of claim 37, further comprising:

determining whether the search result document link references an anchor defined in the search result document; and

stripping the reference to the anchor from the search result document link if the search result document link references the anchor.

43. The computer program product of claim 35, wherein the intra-document link points to one of text within the search result document, an image within the search result document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the search result document, and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

44. The computer program product of claim 35, wherein providing the search result to the user includes providing a search result page, wherein the instruction is at least one of a hidden tag and an attribute on a tag in the search result page.

45. A computer program product embodied on a computer-readable medium, the computer program product including instructions, which when executed by a computer system, are operable to cause the computer system to perform acts comprising:

generating an artificial intra-document anchor corresponding to an intra-document portion within a target document, the artificial intra-document anchor being undefined in the search result document.

46. The computer program product of claim 45, wherein the artificial intra-document link is an instruction to a document browser on a client device to display the target document to navigate directly to the intra-document portion within the target document.

47. A computer program product embodied on a computer-readable medium, the computer program product including instructions, which when executed by a computer system, are operable to cause the computer system to perform acts comprising:

receiving a document link to the target document;

executing an instruction to navigate directly to the intra-document portion within the target document in response to the document link being selected.

48. The computer program product of claim 47, wherein the instruction is a reference to an artificial anchor appended to the document link, the artificial anchor being undefined in the target document.

49. The computer program product of claim 48, wherein the executing includes:

determining whether the document link has an artificial anchor appended thereto; and

parsing the document link and the artificial anchor to extract artificial anchor text from the artificial anchor if the document link has an artificial anchor appended thereto.

50. The computer program product of claim 49, wherein the determining includes:

determining whether the document link has an anchor appended thereto; and

if the document link has an anchor appended thereto, determining whether the anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.

51. The computer program product of claim 50, wherein the determining whether the anchor includes a preassigned artificial anchor designator includes determining whether the anchor includes the preassigned artificial anchor designator as one of a prefix and a suffix of the anchor and wherein the preassigned artificial anchor designator includes a preassigned set of text characters.

52. The computer program product of claim 47, wherein the executing includes highlighting the intra-document portion within the target document.

53. The computer program product of claim 47, wherein the intra-document portion is selected from the group consisting of text within the target document, an image within the target document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the target document, and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

54. The computer program product of claim 47, wherein the document link is a URL.

55. The computer program product of claim 47, wherein the receiving further includes receiving a search result, the search result including the document link to the target document and at least one snippet extracted from the intra-document portion within the target document.

56. A computer program product embodied on a computer-readable medium, the computer program product including instructions, which when executed by a computer system, are operable to cause the computer system to perform acts comprising:

receiving a search result page including at least one search result link pointing to a search result document and at least one snippet extracted from an intra-document portion within the search result document;

generating an intra-document link based on the snippet by appending an artificial anchor to the search result link, the intra-document link pointing to the intra-document portion within the search result document and the artificial anchor being undefined in the target document; and

navigating directly to the intra-document portion within the target document in response to selection of the intra-document link.

57. The computer program product of claim 56, wherein the intra-document portion is selected from the group consisting of text within the target document, an image within the target document, a tag identification, a tag name, a tag location in the document object model, an HTML byte offset defined in the target document, and a general offset or location definition within the search result document.

58. The computer program product of claim 56, wherein the intra-document link contains an artificial anchor, the artificial anchor including a preassigned artificial anchor designator designating the anchor as artificial.