Search query dominant location detection

• US 20060271518A1
• Filed: 05/27/2005
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Xie, Xing, Li, Ying, Wang, Lee, Wang, Chuang, Forman, Joshua
• Granted Patent: US 7,424,472 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

A system and method for location-specific searching. The invention correctly identifies explicit and implicit locations in a search query, and provides an appropriate dominant location. Top search results are obtained and analyzed to determine which terms in the query often appear in combination, and the query is tokenized based on the analysis. An explicit location indicating a location intent is most likely treated as an individual token, and the explicit location is treated as the dominant location of the query. In the case of a false positive, wherein the explicit location in a query is not the location intent, the explicit location is likely to be present with other terms that provide context. A token will likely include these terms together. The explicit location will therefore not be used to generate location-specific results in the case of a false positive.

Claims

1. A method for performing a search, comprising:

receiving a query;

breaking the query into one or more tokens;

determining whether one of the tokens is an explicit location;

ad

if one of the tokens is an explicit location, returning the explicit location as a dominant location for the query.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining search results based on the query.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the search results are used to break the query into one or more tokens.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the query contains an implicit location.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

if the query contains an implicit location, returning the implicit location as a dominant location for the query.

6. The method of claim 4,wherein determining whether the query contains an implicit location comprises:

analyzing search results.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

if none of the tokens is an explicit location and the query does not contain an implicit location, determining that there is no dominant location for the query.

8. A method for tokenizing a query, comprising:

receiving a query;

receiving search results based on the query;

analyzing the search results to determine the frequency of one or more tokens in the search results; and

creating a tokenized query based on the analysis of the search results, the tokenized query including at least one token, and the union of the tokens in the tokenized query being equivalent to the query.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

creating at least one assembly, each assembly including at least one token.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

rating each assembly based on the search results.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

selecting the highest-rated assembly.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the highest-rated assembly is included in the tokenized query.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining whether the most frequent token is equivalent to a desired string.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the desired string is the query.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the desired string is a token from a previous step.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

if the most frequent token is equivalent to the desired string, including the most frequent token in the tokenized query.

17. A computer-based system for performing a location-based search, comprising:

a first module configured to receive a query;

a second module configured to break the query into one or more tokens;

a third module configured to determine whether one of the tokens is an explicit location; and

a fourth module configured to determine whether the query contains an implicit location.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the second module is configured to obtain search results based on the query and to break the query into one or more tokens based on the search results.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the second module is configured to receive a query, receive search results based on the query, analyze the search results to determine the frequency of one or more tokens in the search results, and create a tokenized query based on the analysis of the search results, the tokenized query including at least one token, and the union of the tokens in the tokenized query being equivalent to the query.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the fourth module is configured to analyze search results.