RELEVANCE RANKED FACETED METADATA SEARCH METHOD

• US 20080010276A1
• Filed: 09/04/2007
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Executive Development Corp.
• Original Assignee: Executive Development Corp.
• Inventors: Morton, John, Scherr, Mitchell
• Granted Patent: US 8,296,295 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/005
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/334 Query execution G06F16/335 takes precedence

Abstract

One embodiment may include a method for searching electronic information to produce search results based on a taxonomy item of a faceted taxonomy system. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a query that identifies a taxonomy item; and

performing a computer taxonomy based search of a plurality of content items against the taxonomy item in response to the query, the taxonomy item selected from a faceted taxonomy, wherein the computer based taxonomy search identifies a subset of content items where each content item in the subset of content items has a non-binary relevance score with respect to the taxonomy item.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-binary relevance score with respect to the taxonomy item satisfies a relevance threshold limitation.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the non-binary relevance score is greater than or equal to a threshold to satisfy the relevance threshold limitation.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the non-binary relevance score is greater than a threshold to satisfy the relevance threshold limitation.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the non-binary relevance score is a positive value less than or equal to one hundred and wherein the threshold is a value that is less than one hundred.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a first relevance score for a first content item with respect to the taxonomy item is higher than a second relevance score for a second content item with respect to the taxonomy item, such that the first content item is identified as more relevant to the taxonomy item than the second content item.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first content item is within the subset of content items but the second content item is excluded from the subset of content items.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the first content item is a first published article and the second content item is a second published article, and wherein the query identifies at least one source of the plurality of content items.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the taxonomy item is one of a company name, an industry, a country, a name of a person, or any combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one source includes a news source.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the news source includes a news aggregator and wherein the plurality of content items are stored in a centralized database.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing a full text search after performing the computer taxonomy based search.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising performing the full text search on the subset of content items resulting from the computer taxonomy based search.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising delivering a file to a user that includes a result of performing the computer taxonomy based search, where the file identifies the subset of content items.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the file is periodically delivered to at least one user via email.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the faceted taxonomy is customized for a particular user and wherein the customized faceted taxonomy is stored in a computer memory prior to performing the computer taxonomy based search.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the faceted taxonomy is customized by adding a user specified taxonomy item.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of content items includes associated metadata.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the metadata is associated with XML tags.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the faceted taxonomy comprises a faceted taxonomy classification system that includes logic to assign multiple classifications to a particular content item.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-binary relevance score is a relevance ranking and wherein the relevance ranking is stored as metadata in connection with the content item in a data file.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein a plurality of relevance rankings for an associated plurality of content items are stored in a database using a table.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein a particular content item does not have a predetermined relevance ranking with respect to the taxonomy item and wherein an on the fly taxonomy entry is used to perform the computer taxonomy based search for the particular content item.

24. The method of claim 2, wherein the threshold is a user-controllable threshold.

25. The method of claim 1, further comprising grouping a plurality of taxonomy search results to remove duplicate content items.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein a search result of the taxonomy based search is communicated to a user at prescribed time intervals.

27. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-binary relevance score comprises a relevance ranking determined based on a frequency in which the taxonomy item appears in a document.

28. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-binary relevance score comprises a relevance ranking determined based on a location in which the taxonomy item appears in a document.

29. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-binary relevance score comprises an averaged relevance ranking, a normalized relevance ranking, a multiple search engine generated relevance ranking, or a combination thereof

30. A method of performing a taxonomy item based search, the method comprising:

performing a first taxonomy item search by performing a computer taxonomy based search of a plurality of content items against a first taxonomy item, the first taxonomy item selected from a faceted taxonomy, wherein the computer based taxonomy search identifies a first subset of content items where each content item in the first subset of content items has a non-binary relevance score with respect to the first taxonomy item; and

performing a second taxonomy item search by performing a computer taxonomy based search of the plurality of content items against a second taxonomy item, the second taxonomy item selected from the faceted taxonomy, wherein the computer based taxonomy search identifies a second subset of content items where each content item in the second subset of content items has a non-binary relevance score with respect to the second taxonomy;

wherein a first weight value is applied to a result of the first taxonomy item search to produce a first weight value applied taxonomy search result and a second weight value is applied to a result of the second taxonomy item search to produce a second weight value applied taxonomy search result, and wherein a combined search result is determined based on the first weight value applied taxonomy search result and the second weight value applied taxonomy search result.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the non-binary relevance score with respect to the first taxonomy item satisfies a first relevance threshold limitation;

and

wherein the non-binary relevance score with respect to the second taxonomy item satisfies a second relevance threshold limitation.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the first weight and the second weight are the same.

33. The method of claim 30, wherein the first weight and the second weight are different.

34. The method of claim 30, further comprising grouping a plurality of taxonomy search results to remove duplicate content items.

35. The method of claim 30, wherein the combined search result is communicated to a user at prescribed time intervals.

36. The method of claim 30, wherein the non-binary relevance score comprises a relevance ranking determined based on a frequency in which the taxonomy item appears in a document.

37. The method of claim 30, wherein the non-binary relevance score comprises a relevance ranking determined based on a location in which the taxonomy item appears in a document.

38. The method of claim 30, wherein the non-binary relevance score comprises an averaged relevance ranking, a normalized relevance ranking, a multiple search engine generated relevance ranking, or a combination thereof.

39. The method of claim 30, wherein the first weight value and the second weight value are user controllable.

40. A method of customizing a faceted taxonomy system to support a computer taxonomy based search, the method comprising:

receiving a new taxonomy item; and

modifying a faceted taxonomy system by adding the received taxonomy item and adding a relevance ranking associated with the received taxonomy item with respect to at least one content item to a relevance ranking storage area within the faceted taxonomy system.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the new taxonomy item is received from a user.

42. The method of claim 40, further comprising performing a taxonomy based search using the modified faceted taxonomy system.