Determining a rating for a collection of documents

• US 20050278363A1
• Filed: 05/16/2005
• Published: 12/15/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Packer, Alan J., Larason, John Todd
• Granted Patent: US 7,359,899 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

On one or more data processing systems, a collection rating is determined for a rating scale for contents of a document collection. A link rating is determined for the rating scale for contents linked to or linked by contents of the document collection. The collection rating for the rating scale for contents of the document collection is then modified, based on the determined link rating for the rating scale for contents linked to or linked by contents of the document collection.

Claims

1. A method of operation on one or more data processing machines, the method comprising:

determining a first collection rating according to a first rating scale, said first collection rating relating to a desirability of the contents of a first document collection;

determining a first link rating according to said first rating scale, said first link rating relating to a desirability of contents linked with the contents of said first document collection; and

modifying said first collection rating based on said determined first link rating.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining of a first collection rating comprises determining said first collection rating based on document ratings of a first subset of documents of said first collection of documents, and sizes of the documents of the first subset of documents of the first document collection.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said first subset of documents of said first document collection consists of first textual documents of said first document collection.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining of a first link rating comprises determining at least a second collection rating relating to the desirability of the contents of at least a second document collection with documents linked with documents of said first document collection, and determining said first link rating based on said determined at least a second collection rating.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said modifying of the first collection rating comprises replacing the determined first collection rating with said determined first link rating.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said modifying of the first collection rating comprises adding said determined first link rating to the determined first collection rating or subtracting said determined first link rating from the determined first collection rating.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said first document collection is a web site, and said contents of said first document collection are web pages.

7. (canceled)

9. A method of operation on one or more data processing machines, the method comprising:

determining document ratings according to a rating scale for a subset of documents of a document collection;

determining document sizes of the documents of said subset;

determining a collection rating according to said rating scale, said document collection based on said determined document ratings of said subset of documents, and normalized by said determined document sizes of said subset of documents.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said determining of the collection rating comprises further subdividing said subset of documents into a plurality of groups in accordance with their determined document sizes, and applying a weight to the document rating for each document of the subset in accordance to the document'"'"'s size group classification.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein weights are applied to said determined document ratings for said rating scale as follows:

Document size range in (bytes) Weight <

500 

1 500-999 4 1000-4999 7 5000-9999 10 >

9999 13

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said determining of the collection rating comprises further subdividing said subset of documents into a plurality of groups in accordance with their determined ratings according to said rating scale, and applying a weight to the document rating determined for said rating scale for each document of the subset in accordance to the document'"'"'s rate group classification.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein weights are applied to said determined document ratings for said rating scale as follows:

Determined document rating for said rating scale Weight 0 −

0.5 1 0.5 2 3 3 6

14. The method of claim 9, wherein said determining of the collection rating comprises computing the collection rating according to said rating scale as follows:

$\mathrm{CR}=\frac{\underset{i·<br><br>j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>r_i<br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}{\underset{i·<br><br>j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}$

where

CR is the collection rating for said rating scale;

r_i is the weight applied for document rating group i;

w_i is the weight applied for document size group j;

N_ij is the number of pages in the collection with document rating i and having group sizes j for said rating scale.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein said first collection of documents are web pages of a web site, and said first subset of documents are textual documents of said web site.

16-19. -19. (canceled)

20. An apparatus comprising:

storage medium having stored therein a plurality of programming instructions designed to enable said apparatus to

determine a first collection rating according to said first rating scale, said first collection rating relating to a desirability of the contents of a first document collection,

determine a first link rating according to said first rating scale, said first link rating relating to a desirability of contents linked with the contents of said first document collection, and

modify said first collection rating based on said determined first link rating; and

at least one processor coupled to the storage medium to execute the programming instructions.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said determining of a first collection rating by determining said first collection rating based on document ratings of a first subset of documents of said first collection of documents, and sizes of the documents of the first subset of documents of the first document collection.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein said first subset of documents of said first document collection consists of first textual documents of said first document collection.

23. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said determining of a first link rating by determining at least a second collection rating relating to the desirability of the contents of at least a second document collection with documents linked with documents of said first document collection, and determining said first link rating based on said determined at least a second collection rating.

24. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said modifying of the first collection rating by replacing the determined first collection rating with said determined first link rating.

25. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said modifying of the first collection rating by adding said determined first link rating to the determined first collection rating or subtracting said determined first link rating from the determined first collection rating.

26-38. -38. (canceled)