Search over structured data

• US 20070168331A1
• Filed: 10/23/2005
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Agarwal, Puneet, Brunsman, Jonathan, Sundararajan, Arvind, Reddy, Bindu, Sirajuddin, Sarah, Mosberger, Ning, Kale, David, Ravindra Bhaya, Gaurav, Kozenski, Jennifer
• Granted Patent: US 7,933,900 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/164 File meta data generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation

Abstract

A user can refine a search over structured data by specifying that a label or an attribute value be used to further filter the results of a query.

Claims

1. A method for allowing a user to perform a web-based search on structured data, comprising:

allowing the user to enter a query term in a search engine;

determining a query result in accordance with the query term;

allowing the user to specify one or more attributes associated with at least one data item in the query result, where an attribute is a attribute name/attribute value pair, the attribute value having an attribute type; and

redetermining a second query result in accordance with the specified attributes.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein allowing the user to enter a query term includes allowing the user to specify an attribute and an attribute value as query terms before determining the query result.

3. The method of claim 1, further including displaying the query result before allowing the user to specify the one or more attributes.

4. The method of claim 1, further including displaying a plurality of attribute names before allowing the user to specify the one or more attributes.

5. The method of claim 1, further including adding a most-popular attribute for a predetermined period of time to a plurality of Core Attributes.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the most-popular attribute is most popular with users performing a search, for the predetermined period of time.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the most popular attribute is an attribute having a most number of data items in the query result for the predetermined period of time.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the most popular attribute is the attribute most-often selected by users over a predetermined period of time.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein allowing the user to specify one or more attributes associated with at least one data item in the query result includes:

determining a set of most popular core attribute names associated with data items in the query result; and

displaying only the names of Core attribute values associated with data items in the query result.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein determining a set of most popular core attributes includes:

determining the q most relevant results in the query result;

for the q most relevant results, determining the m most popular attributes associated with those results; and

for n most popular attributes, determining top m attribute/value pairs.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the search in performed in a web-based search engine, receiving the query over a network.

12. A method for allowing a user to perform a web-based search on structured data, comprising:

allowing the user to enter a query term in a search engine;

determining a query result in accordance with the query term;

allowing the user to specify one or more of a plurality of labels associated with at least one data item in the query result, where a label is a valueless tag; and

redetermining a second query result in accordance with the selected one or more labels.

13. The method of claim 12, further including displaying the query result and the plurality of labels before allowing the user to specify one or more labels.

14. The method of claim 12, further including displaying the plurality of labels before allowing the user to specify one or more labels.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein allowing the user to specify one or more labels includes allowing the user to logically combine labels.

16. The method of claim 12, further including adding a most-popular label for a predetermined period of time to a plurality of Core Labels.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the search in performed in a web-based search engine, receiving the query over a network.

18. An apparatus for allowing a user to perform a web-based search on structured data, comprising:

means for allowing the user to enter a query term in a search engine;

means for determining a query result in accordance with the query term;

means for allowing the user to specify one or more attributes associated with at least one data item in the query result, where an attribute is a attribute name/attribute value pair, the attribute value having an attribute type; and

means for redetermining a second query result in accordance with the specified attributes.

19. An appratus for allowing a user to perform a web-based search on structured data, comprising:

a search engine that allows the user to enter a query term in a search engine;

a user interface that allows the user to specify one or more attributes associated with at least one data item in a first query result in accordance with the query term, where an attribute is a attribute name/attribute value pair, the attribute value having an attribute type; and

a query engine that determines the first query result in accordance with the query term and that subsequently redetermines a second query result in accordance with the specified attributes.

20. A computer program product having instructions on a computer readable medium, the instructions capable of causing a data processing system to perform a method comprising:

allowing the user to enter a query term in search engine;

determining a query result in accordance with the query term;

allowing the user to specify one or more attributes associated with at least one data item in the query result, where an attribute is a attribute name/attribute value pair, the attribute value having an attribute type; and

redetermining a second query result in accordance with the specified attributes.