Using popularity data for ranking

• US 20070100824A1
• Filed: 11/03/2005
• Published: 05/03/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rounthwaite, Robert, Richardson, Matthew, Ragno, Robert, Brill, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 7,783,632 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A unique ranking system and method that facilitates improving the ranking and ordering of objects to further enhance the quality, accuracy, and delivery of search results in response to a search query. The system and method involve monitoring and tracking an object in terms of the number of times it'"'"'s been accessed and optionally by whom, when, for how long, and an access rate. The user'"'"'s interaction with the object can be tracked as well. By tracking the objects, a popularity measure can be determined. Popularity based rankings can be computed based on the popularity measure or some function thereof. The popularity measure can be affected by the access time, who accessed it, access duration or the user'"'"'s interaction with the object upon access. The popularity based rankings can be utilized by a search component to improve the quality and retrieval of search results.

Claims

1. An object ranking system that facilitates improving search results and efficiencies comprising:

an object tracking component that tracks one or more objects and records data in connection with at least one of accessed objects and non-accessed objects to determine a popularity measure; and

a ranking component that determines a score for the one or more objects based at least in part on the popularity measure to generate rankings for the one or more objects.

2. The system of claim 1, the popularity measure is a function of one or more of the following:

user interaction with the object, length of time the object is accessed, identity of user who accessed the object, and identity of the object accessed.

3. The system of claim 1, the ranking component ranks the one or more objects based in part on one of the following:

object access time, object access date, and object access rate.

4. The system of claim 1, the ranking component comprises a machine learning component that facilitates determining the score and is customizable according to user preferences.

5. The system of claim 1, the one or more objects comprising at least one of the following:

a web page, a document, an image, a video, a message, and an audio file.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one search component located on at least one of the following:

Internet, an intranet, and a desktop.

7. The system of claim 1, the object tracking component records at least one of an access count, access rate, access time, access date, and by whom the one or more objects are accessed.

8. The system of claim 1, the ranking component determines the score for the one or more objects using at least one ranking function and the popularity measure wherein such usage by the ranking function depends on at least one of the following:

user identity, demographics of the user, user profile data, submission time of query, length of the query, and content of the query.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising an analysis component that counts the number of times objects have been accessed within a period of time and uses at least one of the following to determine the popularity measure:

a count per object, a function of the count per object, and a function of the count per object and the duration of the time period.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a ranking aggregation component that combines object rankings as determined by one or more sources with the popularity based ranking to produce a new popularity based ranking for the one or more objects.

11. An object ranking method that facilitates improving search engine results and efficiencies comprising:

tracking one or more objects and recording data in connection with at least one of accessed objects and non-access objects to determine a popularity measure;

determining a score for the one or more objects based at least in part on the popularity measure; and

ranking the one or more objects based at least in part on the popularity measure.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising communicating popularity based rankings to improve search results given in response to search queries.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising collecting data relating to a user'"'"'s interaction with the one or more objects.

14. The method of claim 13, determining the score for the one or more objects based on the popularity measure and at least a portion of data collected relating to the user'"'"'s interaction with the one or more objects.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising mitigating the popularity measure based in part on the portion of data collected.

16. The method of claim 13, the data comprising time of access.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising ranking the one or more objects based on a function of the popularity measure.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising employing machine learning to determine the scores for the one or more objects.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising combining at least one object ranking for one or more objects determined by at least a first source with a popularity based ranking for the same one or more objects to obtain a new popularity based ranking.

20. An object ranking system that facilitates improving search engine results and efficiencies comprising:

a means for tracking one or more objects and recording data in connection with at least one of accessed objects and non-access objects to determine a popularity measure; and

a means for determining a score for the one or more objects based at least in part on the popularity measure and generating popularity based rankings for the one or more objects.