DOCUMENT SCORING BASED ON DOCUMENT CONTENT UPDATE

• US 20070100817A1
• Filed: 11/21/2006
• Published: 05/03/2007
• 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, Acharya, Anurag, Tong, Simon, Haahr, Paul, Dean, Jeffrey
• Granted Patent: US 8,112,426 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 measure of how a content of a document changes over time, generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the measure of how the content of the document changes over time, and rank the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time;

generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on the measure of how the content of the document changes over time; 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 measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

determining an update frequency associated with the document.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining an update frequency includes:

determining an average time between updates of the content of the document.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining an update frequency includes:

determining a number of updates of the content of the document in a time period.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time further includes:

determining an update amount associated with the document.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein generating a score includes:

generating the score as a function of both the update frequency and the update amount.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

determining an update amount associated with the document.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein determining an update amount includes:

determining a number of new pages associated with the document in a time period.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining a number of new pages includes:

determining a ratio of the number of new pages associated with the document in the time period versus a total number of pages associated with the document.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein determining an update amount includes:

determining an amount of the content of the document that has been updated or changed within a time period.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

assigning different weights to different portions of the content of the document, and determining the measure of how the content of the document changes based, at least in part, on the assigned weights.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein assigning different weights to different portions of the content of the document includes:

identifying unimportant portions of the content of the document, and

assigning little weight to the unimportant portions, relative to weights assigned to other portions of the content of the document, when determining the measure of how the content of the document changes.

13. The method of claim 1, determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

determining a first rate of change in the content of the document in a first time period,

determining a second rate of change in the content of the document in a second time period, and

comparing the first rate of change and the second rate of change to determine whether there is an increase or a decrease in the rate of change in the content of the document.

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

scoring the document based, at least in part, on whether there is an increase or a decrease in the rate of change in the content of the document.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing a representation of the document instead of all of the content of the document; and

wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes;

monitoring the representation of the document for changes in the document.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the representation includes at least one of a term vector, a summary, or a similarity hash.

17. 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 date-of-change of the documents in the group based, at least in part, on dates on which contents of the documents changed.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

determining a date on which the content of the document changed; and

wherein generating a score for the document includes;

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

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the content of the document is associated with a plurality of individuals or organizations;

and

wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes;

separately determining the measure of how the content associated with each of the plurality of individuals or organizations changes over time.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

determining whether the content of the document changes such that the content differs from anchor text associated with a link that points to the document; and

wherein generating a score for the document includes;

scoring the document based, at least in part, on whether the content of the document changes such that the content differs from the anchor text.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

analyzing, over time, appearance of anchor text corresponding to links pointing to the document, and

identifying a rate of increase in the appearance of the anchor text; and

wherein generating a score for the document includes;

scoring the document based, at least in part, on the identified rate of increase in the appearance of the anchor text.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a measure of how a content of a document changes over time includes:

determining, over time, whether a topic associated with the content of the document changes; and

wherein generating a score for the document includes;

scoring the document based, at least in part, on the whether the topic associated with the content of the document changes.

23. A system, comprising:

means for determining an update frequency associated with a document;

means for determining an update amount associated with the document;

means for generating a score for the document as a function of both the update frequency and the update amount; and

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

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the means for determining an update frequency includes:

means for determining an average time between updates of a content of the document.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein the means for determining an update frequency includes:

means for determining a number of updates of a content of the document in a time period.

26. The system of claim 23, wherein the means for determining an update amount includes:

means for determining a number of new pages associated with the document in a time period.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein the means for determining a number of new pages includes:

means for determining a ratio of the number of new pages associated with the document in the time period versus a total number of pages associated with the document.

28. The system of claim 23, wherein the means for determining an update amount includes:

means for determining an amount of a content of the document that has been updated or changed within a time period.

29. A method, comprising:

determining a first rate of change in a content of a document in a first time period;

determining a second rate of change in the content of the document in a second time period;

comparing the first rate of change and the second rate of change to determine whether there is an increase or a decrease in the rate of change in the content of the document;

generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on whether there is an increase or a decrease in the rate of change in the content of the document; and

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

30. 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 date on which a content changed for each of the search result documents in a set of the search result documents in the group;

determining an average date-of-change of the search result documents in the set of search result documents based, at least in part, on the determined dates;

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 determined date associated with the search result document and the average date-of-change of the search result documents in the set of search result documents; and

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

31. A method, comprising:

determining a measure of how anchor text associated with a link pointing to a document changes over time;

generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on the measure of how the anchor text associated with the link pointing to the document changes over time; and

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

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the anchor text corresponds to a plurality of anchor text associated with a plurality of links pointing to the document;

wherein determining a measure of how anchor text associated with a link pointing to a document changes over time includes;

analyzing, over time, appearance of the plurality of anchor text, and identifying a rate of increase in the appearance of the plurality of anchor text.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein generating a score for the document includes:

scoring the document based, at least in part, on the identified rate of increase in the appearance of the plurality of anchor text.

34. A system, comprising:

means for determining whether a topic associated with a document changes over time;

means for generating a score for the document based, at least in part, on the whether the topic associated with the document changes; and

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