Method and apparatus for categorizing and presenting documents of a distributed database

• US 20050251496A1
• Filed: 02/17/2005
• Published: 11/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Flake, Gary W., Savich, Peter, DeCoste, Dennis M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,260,786 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/353 into predefined classes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method for providing search results to a user is disclosed. The method includes receiving a first set of information associated with a plurality of web pages. A second set of information associated with a user preference, determining a commercial score for each web page is also received. A subset of the first set of information is determined based on the second set of information. A visual indicator for the subset of the first set of information is generated in accordance with a commercial score, and the subset and the visual indicator are displayed on a display.

Claims

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

receiving a first set of information associated with a plurality of web pages;

receiving a second set of information associated with a user preference;

determining a commercial score for each web page;

determining a subset of the first set of information based on the second set of information;

generating a visual indicator for the subset of the first set of information in accordance with a commercial score; and

displaying the subset and the visual indicator on a display.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second set of information corresponds to a threshold commercial score value.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the subset of the first information is determined by comparing the commercial scores for each associated web page to the threshold commercial score value.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first subset includes information associated with those web pages having a commercial score exceeding the threshold commercial score value.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising generating a second subset of the first information, the second subset including remainder of the first set of information.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the displaying step further includes displaying the subset in a first display area and displaying the second subset in a second display area.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying a user preference object for collecting the second set of information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the subset is determined upon collection of the second set of information.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual indicator comprises a number indicative of the commercial score.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual indicator comprises a graphic indicative of the commercial score.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein the visual indicator comprises indicia indicating the subset.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing the user to choose the visual indicator from a set of visual indicators.

13. A method for providing search results to a user, comprising:

providing a user interface to collect a user input;

providing a user preference object capable of being set by the user to a plurality of values; and

displaying a search result in accordance with the user input and a user selected value from the plurality of values of the user preference object.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the displaying occurs in response to the setting of the user preference object.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the plurality of values are indicative of a desire to view commercial results.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the user preference object comprises a slider.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the user preference object comprises a text box.

18. A user interface for providing search results to a user, comprising:

a first graphical user interface object for receiving a keyword from the user;

a second graphical user interface object for receiving a user preference from the user, the user preference indicative of a desire to view a determined mix of commercial and non-commercial results; and

a display area for displaying search results associated with a plurality of web pages to a user,

wherein the search results are displayed in response to either receiving the keyword or the user preference.

19. The user interface of claim 18, further comprising a commercial score generator capable of generating, for each of a subset of the plurality of web pages, a commercial score indicative of the commercial nature of the web page.

20. The user interface of claim 19, wherein the user preference corresponds to a threshold commercial score value.

21. The user interface of claim 20, wherein the subset is determined by comparing the commercial score to the threshold value.

22. The user interface of claim 18, wherein the second graphical user interface object is capable of being set to a plurality of values.

23. The user interface of claim 22, wherein the second graphical user interface object comprises a slider.

24. The user interface of claim 18, wherein the determined mix corresponds to a desire to view more commercial results than non-commercial results.

25. The user interface of claim 18, wherein the determined mix corresponds to a desire to view less commercial results than non-commercial results.

26. The user interface of claim 18, wherein the determined mix corresponds to a desire to view only commercial results.