DOCUMENT SCORING BASED ON DOCUMENT INCEPTION DATE

• US 20070094254A1
• Filed: 11/20/2006
• Published: 04/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Henzinger, Monika, Lawrence, Steve, Pfleger, Karl, Tong, Simon, Cutts, Matt, Haahr, Paul, Dean, Jeffrey
• Granted Patent: US 7,840,572 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A system may determine a document inception date associated with a document, generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the document inception date, and rank the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

determining a document inception date associated with a document;

generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on the document inception date; and

ranking the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which a search engine first identifies of or indexes the document as the document inception date.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which a search engine first identifies a link to the document as the document inception date.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which a domain associated with the document is registered as the document inception date.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which the document is first referenced in another document as the document inception date.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the other document includes a news article, a newsgroup posting, a blog posting, or a mailing list.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which the document includes at least a threshold number of pages as the document inception date.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date from a timestamp provided by a server hosting the document as the document inception date.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a score for the document includes:

determining a first score for the document, and

altering the first score based, at least in part, on the document inception date, to obtain a second score.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein altering the first score includes:

adjusting the first score based, at least in part, on an amount of time that has elapsed since the document inception date.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a rate at which links to the document are created based, at least in part, on the document inception date; and

wherein generating a score for the document includes;

scoring the document based, at least in part, on the rate at which links to the document are created.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the document is one of a plurality of documents in a group;

and

wherein the method further comprises;

determining an average age of the documents in the group based, at least in part, on document inception dates associated with the documents.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein generating a score for the document includes:

scoring the document based, at least in part, on a difference between the document inception date and the average age of the documents in the group.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein generating a score for the document includes:

determining a first score for the document, and

adjusting the first score based, at least in part, on a difference between the document inception date and the average age of the documents in the group, to obtain a second score.

15. A system, comprising:

means for determining a document inception date associated with a document;

means for determining an amount of time that has elapsed since the document inception date;

means for generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on the amount of time that has elapsed since the document inception date; and

means for ranking the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

16. A method, comprising:

receiving a search query;

performing a search based, at least in part, on the search query to identify a group of search result documents;

determining a document inception date for each of the search result documents in a set of the search result documents in the group;

determining a representative document inception date for the search result documents in the set of search result documents;

generating a score for a search result document in the set of search result documents based, at least in part, on a difference between the document inception date associated with the search result document and the representative document inception date for the search result documents in the set of search result documents; and

ranking the search result document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which a search engine first identifies or indexes one of the search result documents as the document inception date for the one of the search result documents.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which a search engine first identifies a link to one of the search result documents as the document inception date for the one of the search result documents.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which a domain associated with one of the search result documents is registered as the document inception date for the one of the search result documents.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which one of the search result documents is first referenced in another document as the document inception date for the one of the search result documents.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date on which one of the search result documents includes at least a threshold number of pages as the document inception date for the one of the search result documents.

22. The method of claim 16, wherein determining a document inception date includes:

identifying a date associated with a timestamp provided by a server hosting one of the search result documents as the document inception date for the one of the search result documents.

23. The method of claim 16, wherein generating a score for a search result document includes:

generating a first score for the search result document, and

altering the first score based, at least in part, on the difference between the document inception date associated with the search result document and the representative document inception date for the search result documents in the set of search result documents, to obtain a second score.

24. A system, comprising:

means for determining a document inception date associated with a document;

means for determining a rate at which links to the document are created based, at least in part, on the document inception date;

means for generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on the rate at which links to the document are created; and

means for ranking the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

25. A method, comprising:

determining a first document inception date associated with a first document;

determining a second document inception date associated with a second document, where the second document inception date is earlier in time than the first document inception date;

generating a first score for the first document based, at least in part, on the first document inception date; and

generating a second score for the second document based, at least in part, on the second document inception date, where the first score is higher than the second score; and

ranking the first document or the second document with regard to at least one other document respectively based, at least in part, on the first score or the second score.

26. A method, comprising:

determining a first document inception date associated with a first document;

determining a second document inception date associated with a second document, where the second document inception date is earlier in time than the first document inception date;

generating a first score for the first document based, at least in part, on the first document inception date;

generating a second score for the second document based, at least in part, on the second document inception date, where the first score is lower than the second score; and

ranking the first document or the second document with regard to at least one other document respectively based, at least in part, on the first score or the second score.