System and method for exposing internal search indices to Internet search engines

• US 20060155685A1
• Filed: 01/13/2005
• Published: 07/13/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Grim, Clifton E. III, Wilson, John D., Schmidt, Christopher I.
• Granted Patent: US 8,874,544 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2228 Indexing structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions

Abstract

A system and method for exposing internal search indices to Internet search engines. The internal search indices are exposed to external search engines in such a way that the data may be segregated into at least two types including one layer of search data specifically for the search engines, and another for potential users of the application. This significantly improves the probability of discovery by search engines and also provides for presentation of discovered content to users in a manner consistent with the content itself, or consistent with the intended controls or presentations established by the content'"'"'s owner. The system and method also includes one or more components that reproduce information about IP in a format that search engines can recognize and locate. The component also forwards users coming through the search engines to the actual IP graphical user interface (GUI) instead of the files that the search engine discovered. This allows control over the information that search engines see/view, while ensuring that a user'"'"'s interface to the system stays constant.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating on-line searching, comprising the steps of:

generating one or more metadata files having keyword value pairs from indices to intellectual property at a web site;

storing the one or more metadata files as one or more hyper-text markup files (HTML) in a directory accessible through the Internet;

creating a master index file containing one or more links to each of the one or more metafiles; and

accessing at least one of the one or more metafiles via the one or more links to locate the intellectual property for commercial or private use.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising crawling through the master index file with a search agent to create search indices.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising using a browser to search the search indices for accessing the at least one of the one or more metafiles.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

redirecting a search agent to the directory;

retrieving the master index file containing the one or more links; and

storing metadata information in internal indices associated with the search agent for user searches.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

entering search criteria into the search agent;

searching the internal indices and associated metadata to match the search criteria; and

returning one or more matching results from the searching step.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising selecting the one or more matching results.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising presenting a login screen to an information marketplace when a selection is made from one of the one or more matching results, the selection being for an item of the intellectual property within the information marketplace.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising determining whether a user is logged into the information marketplace and by-passing the presenting a login screen step if the user is already logged into the information marketplace.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the information marketplace is the web site.

10. A method of exposing search indices, comprising the steps of:

creating one or more metadata files having keyword value pairs from indices of an information marketplace having intellectual property;

storing the one or more metadata files in a directory accessible through a network;

creating a master index file containing one or more links to each of the one or more metafiles; and

accessing at least one of the one or more metafiles via the one or more links to locate the intellectual property for at least any one of a transaction, a commercial use and a private use.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising crawling through the master index file with a search agent to create indices for searching.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising searching the indices for accessing the at least one of the one or more metafiles.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

redirecting a search agent to the directory;

retrieving the master index file containing the one or more links; and

storing metadata information in internal indices associated with the search agent for subsequent searches.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

entering search criteria into the search agent;

searching the internal indices and associated metadata to match the search criteria; and

returning one or more matching results from the searching step.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising presenting a login screen to the information marketplace when a selection is made from among the one or more matching results, the selection being for an item of intellectual property within the information marketplace.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising by-passing the presenting a login screen step if a user is already logged into the information marketplace.

17. A system for facilitating on-line searching, comprising:

means for generating one or more metadata files having keyword value pairs from indices to intellectual property at a web site;

means for storing the one or more metadata files in a directory accessible on-line;

means for creating a master index file containing one or more links to each of the one or more metafiles; and

means for accessing at least one of the one or more metafiles via the one or more links to locate the intellectual property for at least any one of a transaction, a commercial use and a private use.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising means for crawling through the master index file with a search agent to create search indices.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising means for using a browser to search the search indices for accessing the at least one of the one or more metafiles.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising:

means for redirecting a search agent to the directory;

means for retrieving the master index file containing the one or more links; and

means for storing metadata information in internal indices associated with the search agent for user searches.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising:

means for receiving search criteria by the search agent;

means for searching the internal indices and associated metadata to match the search criteria; and

means for returning one or more matching results from the searching.

22. The system of claim 17, further comprising means for presenting a login screen to an information marketplace when a selection is made from one of the one or more matching results, the selection being for an item of intellectual property within the information marketplace.

23. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

means for determining whether a user is logged into the information marketplace; and

means for by-passing a login sequence if a user is already logged into the information marketplace.

24. The system of claim 17, wherein the means for storing the one or more metadata files stores the one or more metadata files as hyper-text markup language (HTML) files.

25. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer program product includes at least one component to:

create one or more metadata files having keyword value pairs from the indices of an information marketplace having intellectual property;

store the one or more metadata files in a directory accessible through a network;

create a master index file containing one or more links to each of the one or more metafiles; and

access at least one of the one or more metafiles via the one or more links to locate the intellectual property for at least any one of a transaction, commercial use, and a private use.