System and method for determining semantically related terms

• US 20070027864A1
• Filed: 05/11/2006
• Published: 02/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Harris, Graham, Riedel, Lance, Sebastian, Shaji, Collins, Robert, Yuan, Jeff, Harris, Jesse, Sabah, Mohammad, Kushida, Grant, Zhou, Yiping
• Granted Patent: US 7,548,929 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/36 Creation of semantic tools, e.g. ontology or thesauri
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0211 Determining the effectiveness of discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for determining semantically related terms. Generally, one or more seed terms are received from a user. A system searches a first index comprising a plurality of terms and one or more webpages associated with each term of the plurality of terms to determine a plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms. The system then searches a second index comprising a plurality of webpages and one or more terms associated with each webpage of the plurality of webpages to determine a plurality of potential terms associated with the plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms. At least one term of the plurality of potential terms is suggested to a user.

Claims

1. A method for determining semantically related terms, comprising:

receiving one or more seed terms;

searching a first index to determine a plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms, the first index comprising a plurality of terms and for each term of the plurality of terms, an association between one or more webpages and the term;

searching a second index to determine a plurality of potential terms associated with the plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms, the second index comprising a plurality of identifiers for webpages and for each webpages of the plurality of identifiers for webpages, an association between one or more terms and the webpage; and

suggesting at least one term of the plurality of potential terms.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an indication of relevance of at least one suggested term to a user; and

modifying the terms which comprise the seed terms based at least in part on the received indication of relevance.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the indication of relevance to the user is an indication of relevance to the user on a scale.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein modifying the terms which comprise the seed terms comprises:

receiving an indication that a first term is relevant to the user; and

modifying the seed terms to comprise the first term as a positive seed term.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein modifying the terms which comprise the seed terms comprises:

receiving an indication that a second term is not relevant to the user; and

modifying the seed terms to comprise the second term as a negative seed term.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

searching the first index to determine a second plurality of webpages associated with the modified seed terms;

searching the second index to determine a second plurality of potential terms associated with the second plurality of webpages associated with the modified seed terms; and

suggesting at least one term of the second plurality of potential terms.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

calculating a continuous degree of relevance based on indications of relevance of a term to a user received from a plurality of users.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second indexes are the same index.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second indexes are different indexes.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving one or more seed terms comprises:

receiving a location of a webpage; and

pulling one or more terms from the content of the webpage.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

suggesting at least one term of the terms pulled from the content of the webpage.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein pulling one or more terms from the content of the webpage comprises:

retrieving the content of the webpage from the location of the webpage;

stripping code from the content of the webpage;

pulling one or more terms from the content of the webpage; and

weighing each term of the one or more terms pulled form the content of the webpage based on a location of where the term was located on the webpage.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more seed terms comprise at least one term sent to an internet search engine.

14. A computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions for determining semantically related terms, the set of instructions to direct a computer system to perform acts of:

receiving one or more seed terms;

searching a first index to determine a plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms, the first index comprising a plurality of terms and for each term of the plurality of terms, an association between one or more webpages and the term;

searching a second index to determine a plurality of potential terms associated with the plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms, the second index comprising a plurality of identifiers for webpages and for each webpages of the plurality of identifiers for webpages, an association between one or more terms and the webpage; and

suggesting at least one term of the plurality of potential terms.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprising a set of instructions to direct the computer system to perform acts of:

receiving an indication of relevance of at least one suggested term to a user; and

modifying the terms which comprise the seed terms based at least in part on the received indication of relevance.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, where modifying the terms which comprise the seed terms comprises:

receiving an indication that a second term is not relevant to the user; and

modifying the seed terms to comprise the second term as a negative seed term.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising a set of instructions to direct the computer system to perform acts of:

searching the first index to determine a second plurality of webpages associated with the modified seed terms;

searching the second index to determine a second plurality of potential terms associated with the second plurality of webpages associated with the modified seed terms; and

suggesting at least one term of the second plurality of potential terms.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein receiving one or more seed terms comprises:

receiving a location of a webpage; and

pulling one or more terms from the content of the webpage.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein pulling one or more seed terms from the content of the webpage comprises:

retrieving the content of webpage from the location of the webpage;

stripping code from the content of the webpage;

pulling one or more terms from the content of the webpage; and

weighing each term of the one or more terms pulled from the content of the webpage based on a location of where the term was located on the webpage.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more seed terms comprise at least one term sent to an internet search engine.

21. A system for determining semantically related terms comprising:

a first database comprising a first index, the first index comprising a plurality of terms and for each term of the plurality of terms, an association between one or more webpages and the term;

a second database comprising a second index, the second index comprising a plurality of identifiers for webpages and for each webpage of the plurality of identifiers for webpages, an association between one or more terms and the website; and

at least one server operative to access the first and second indexes, the at least one server configured to;

receive one or more seed terms;

search the first index to determine a plurality of webpages associated with the seed terms;

search the second index to determine a plurality of potential terms associated with the plurality of webpages; and

suggest at least one of the plurality of potential terms.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the first and second database are the same database.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the at least one server is further configured to:

receive an indication of relevance of at least one suggested term to a user; and

modifying the terms which comprise the seed terms based at least in part on the received indication of relevance.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein to receive one or more seed terms, the at least one server is further configured to:

receive a location of a webpage;

retrieve content of the webpage from the location of the webpage;

strip code from the content of the webpage;

pull one or more terms from the content of the webpage; and

weigh each term of the one or more terms pulled from the content of the webpage based on a location of where the term was located on the webpage.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the one or more seed terms comprise at least one term sent to an internet search engine.

26. A method for determining semantically related terms, comprising:

receiving one or more seed terms;

determining one or more potential terms semantically related to seed terms based on one or more vectors comprising entries regarding a plurality of webpages at an advertisement campaign managements, terms associated with each webpage of the plurality of webpages, and a number of terms associated with each webpage of the plurality of webpages; and

suggesting at least a portion of the determined potential terms.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein determining one or more potential terms semantically related to seed terms based on one or more vectors comprises:

creating a first set of vectors representing for each webpage at an advertisement campaign management system, whether a term at the advertisement campaign management system is associated with the webpage;

creating a second set of vectors representing for each webpage at the advertisement campaign management system, at least a weight of each term associated with the webpage; and

determining one or more potential terms semantically related to the seed terms based on the first and second sets of vectors, and the seed terms.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein determining one or more potential terms semantically related to the seed terms based on one or more vectors further comprises:

normalizing at least one vector of the second set of vectors.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein determining one or more potential terms semantically related to the seed terms based on the first and second sets of vectors, and the seed terms comprises:

calculating the equation;

T=Sum of (V1*cosine(V2,S)),

wherein V1*cosine(V2,S) is calculated for a number of webpages at the advertisement campaign management system;

V1 is the vector of the first set of vectors indicating for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, whether a term is associated with the webpage;

V2 is the vector of the second set of vectors including for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, an entry indicating a weight of a term associated with the webpage;

S is a seed term vector indicating for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, whether the term is a seed term; and

T is a vector indicating for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, how relevant the term is to the seed terms.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the number of webpages is every webpage at the advertisement campaign management system.

31. A computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of instructions for determining semantically related terms, the set of instructions to direct a computer system to perform acts of:

receiving one or more seed terms;

determining one or more potential terms semantically related to seed terms based on one or more vectors comprising entries regarding a plurality of webpages at an advertisement campaign managements, terms associated with each webpage of the plurality of webpages, and a number of terms associated with each webpage of the plurality of webpages; and

suggesting at least a portion of the determined potential terms.

32. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 31, wherein determining one or more potential terms semantically related to seed terms based on one or more vectors comprises:

creating a first set of vectors representing for each webpage at an advertisement campaign management system, whether a term at the advertisement campaign management system is associated with the webpage;

creating a second set of vectors representing for each webpage at the advertisement campaign management system, at least a weight of each term associated with the webpage; and

determining one or more potential terms semantically related to the seed terms based on the first and second sets of vectors, and the seed terms.

33. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein determining one or more potential terms semantically related to the seed terms based on one or more vectors further comprises:

normalizing at least one vector of the second set of vectors.

34. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein determining one or more potential terms semantically related to the seed terms based on the first and second sets of vectors, and the seed terms comprises:

calculating the equation;

T=Sum of (V1*cosine(V2,S)),

wherein V1*cosine(V2,S) is calculated for a number of webpages at the advertisement campaign management system;

V1 is the vector of the first set of vectors indicating for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, whether a term is associated with the webpage;

V2 is the vector of the second set of vectors including for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, an entry indicating a weight of a term associated with the webpage;

S is a seed term vector indicating for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, whether the term is a seed term; and

T is a vector indicating for each term at the advertisement campaign management system, how relevant the term is to the seed terms.

35. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 34, wherein the number of webpages is every webpage at the advertisement campaign management system.

36. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 31, wherein the portion of the determined potential terms is suggested via a user interface of an advertisement campaign management system.

37. The computer-readable storage medium of claims 31, wherein the portion of the determined potential terms is suggested via an application program interface (“

API”

) of an advertisement campaign management system.