Variable personalization of search results in a search engine

• US 20050216434A1
• Filed: 12/01/2004
• Published: 09/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Kamvar, Sepandar D., Jeh, Glen M., Haveliwala, Taher H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,223 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A search engine provides personalized rankings of search results. A user interest profile identifies topics of interest to a user. Each topic is associated with one or more sites, and a boost value, which can be used to augment an information retrieval score of any document from the site. Search results from any search are provided to the user, with a variable control of the ranking of the results. The results can be ranked by their unboosted information retrieval score, thus reflecting no personalization, or by their fully or partially boosted information retrieval scores. This allows the user to selectively control how their interests affect the ranking of the documents.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents in response to an interest profile of the user and a degree of influence of the interest profile to the ranking; and

presenting the ranked documents to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the ranked documents further comprises:

displaying a personalization icon next to each document associated with an interest that is included in the interest profile of the user.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving from the user an input of a degree of influence which the user'"'"'s interest profile is to have on the ranked documents;

determining a second ranking of the set of documents in response to the degree of influence; and

presenting the documents with the second ranking to the user.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the second ranking is performed without retrieving a second set of documents relevant to the query.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the second ranking is determined prior to receiving the user input of the degree of influence.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the second ranking is determined concurrently with determining the first ranking.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the user input of the degree of control is a change of position in a graphical representation of a control.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the control is a slider.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the control is a dial.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the control is radio button.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking further comprises:

retrieving the interest profile of the user from a cookie.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking further comprises:

retrieving the interest profile of the user from a database communicatively coupled to a search engine.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the interest profile of the user comprises a set of text tokens, each token corresponding to a topic of interest.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the interest profile of the user comprises a set of topic index numbers, each index number corresponding to a topic of interest.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking comprises:

scaling the information retrieval score of at least one document in the set by a boost value associated with the document in response to the document being associated with an interested included in the interest profile of the user.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein each document has an information retrieval score, and determining a first ranking comprises:

for each document associated with a topic included in the interest profile of the user, determining a boost value for the document, and scaling an information retrieval score of the document by the boost value and the degree of influence; and

ranking the documents in the set according to their information retrieval scores.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking comprises:

for at least one document in the set of documents;

determining whether a website containing the document is associated with a topic included in the interest profile of the user; and

scaling an information retrieval score of the document by the boost value associated with the website containing the document.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking comprises:

for at least one document in the set of documents;

determining whether the document is included in a first website linked to by a second website, the second website associated with a topic included in the interest profile of the user; and

scaling an information retrieval score of the document by a weight value associated with the first website.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the weight value is based on a number of links from the second website to the first website.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking comprises:

for a document associated with a plurality of topics included in the interest profile of the user;

determining a website containing the document;

determining for each topic associated with the website, a boost value for a website; and

determining a final boost value for the document as a function of the boost values; and

scaling the information retrieval score of the document by the final boost.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a first ranking comprises:

determining for at least one document, a boost value from a topic directory comprising a plurality of topics, each topic associated with at least one website, each website having a boost value, wherein the interest profile of the user contains at least one topic from the topic directory; and

scaling an information retrieval score of the least one document by its boost value.

22. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents independently of an interest profile of the user;

presenting the ranked documents to the user;

receiving from the user an input providing a degree of influence which the user'"'"'s interest profile is to have on the ranked documents; and

presenting the documents to the user with a second ranking according to the degree of influence.

23. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents according to a minimum degree of influence of an interest profile of the user;

determining a second ranking of the set of documents according to a maximum degree of influence the interest profile of the user;

presenting the first ranking of the documents to the user;

receiving a user input providing a selection of a maximum degree of influence of the user'"'"'s interest profile;

presenting the second ranking of the documents to the user.

24. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents according to a maximum degree of influence the interest profile of the user;

determining a second ranking of the set of documents according to a minimum degree of influence of an interest profile of the user;

presenting the first ranking of the documents to the user;

receiving a user input providing a selection of a minimum degree of influence of the user'"'"'s interest profile;

presenting the second ranking of the documents to the user.

25. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents according to a minimum degree of influence of an interest profile of the user;

determining a second ranking of the set of documents according to a maximum degree of influence the interest profile of the user;

presenting the first ranking of the documents to the user;

receiving a user input providing a degree of influence of the user'"'"'s interest profile;

determining a third ranking of the documents by interpolating between the first ranking and the second ranking according to the received degree of influence relative to the minimum and maximum degrees of influence.

26. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents in response to an interest profile of the user and a degree of influence of the interest profile to the ranking, wherein the interest profile includes at least one topic of interest to the user;

presenting the ranked documents to the user;

receiving from the user a modification to interest profile, the change comprising at least one of a) at least one topic added to the interest profile, and b) at least one topic deleted from the interest profile;

determining a second ranking of the set of documents in response to the modified interest profile; and

presenting the documents with the second ranking to the user.

27. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

at a server;

retrieving a set of documents relevant to a query of a user;

determining a first ranking of the set of documents according to a minimum degree of influence of an interest profile of the user;

determining a second ranking of the set of documents according to a maximum degree of influence the interest profile of the user;

determining a plurality of ranking vectors, including a first ranking vector describing the first ranking of the set of documents, a second ranking vector describing the second ranking of the set of documents, and at least one intermediate ranking vector describing a third ranking of the set of documents interpolated between the first and second rankings;

at a client;

presenting the first ranking of the documents to the user according to the first ranking vector;

receiving a user input providing a degree of influence of the user'"'"'s interest profile;

selecting one of the plurality of ranking vectors corresponding to the received user input of the degree of influence; and

presenting the set of documents according to the selected ranking vector.

28. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user;

ranking the set of documents according a set of topics selected by the user as representative of the user'"'"'s interests and to a degree of influence of the selected topics; and

presenting the ranked documents to the user.

29. A computer implemented method of personalizing results of a search query to a user, comprising:

retrieving a set of documents relevant to the search query of the user, each document having an information retrieval score;

boosting the information retrieval score of at least one document in the set according to a boost value assigned to a website related to the document, where the website is associated with at least one topic in a set of topics selected by the user as representative of the user'"'"'s interests;

ranking the set of documents according to their information retrieval scores, including both documents with boosted information retrieval scores and unboosted information retrieval scores; and

presenting the ranked documents to the user.

30. A user interface for a search engine, comprising:

a topical directory including a plurality of topics, including topics selectable by a user to indicate an interest in the topic for defining an interest profile of the user; and

a search results page, that lists search results comprising a plurality of documents relevant to a search query of a user, and including a graphical control element that enables the user to adjust a ranking of the documents in accordance with the interest profile of the user.

31. The user interface of claim 30, wherein the topical directory further comprises:

each topic associated with a plurality of websites, each website having an associated boost value for boosting an information retrieval score of a document related to that website when the document is relevant to the search query.

32. The user interface of claim 30, wherein the graphical control is a slider.

33. The user interface of claim 30, wherein the graphical control is a dial.

34. The user interface of claim 30, wherein the graphical control is radio button.

35. The user interface of claim 30, wherein the graphical control has a plurality of positions, each position associated with a degree of influence of the user'"'"'s interest profile.

36. A search engine system, comprising:

a topical directory including a plurality of topics, including topics selectable by a user to indicate an interest in the topic for defining an interest profile of the user;

a search engine for retrieving search results comprising documents in response to a query provided by a user and ranking the documents according to relevance to the query; and

a personalization component that determines at least one ranking of the documents according to the user'"'"'s interest profile.