METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ESTABLISHING DOCUMENT RELEVANCE

• US 20080256049A1
• Filed: 01/19/2007
• Published: 10/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Edifecs
• Original Assignee: Healthline Networks, Inc.
• Inventors: Katwala, Niraj, Patton, Nicholas, Pump, Jason
• Granted Patent: US 7,844,602 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

A search engine that provides search results which are ordered, in part, based on an automated analysis of the organizational structure of a group of documents, as indicated by the address of the documents, is disclosed. In one embodiment, a bot crawls various websites analyzing documents, and their organizational structure, in an effort to identify documents that have an implicit high quality based on their inclusion in an index. Accordingly, the search engine provides a greater weight in ranking document relevance to those documents that have been included in certain indexes, such as top ten lists, and A-Z lists.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

a bot, automatically analyzing the organizational structure associated with a group of documents hosted at a particular source to identify a pattern indicating an implied ranking of the documents; and

a search engine, providing search results to a keyword search wherein the search results are organized when presented, in part, based on a weighting scheme taking into consideration a score derived from the implied ranking of the documents analyzed by the bot.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the organizational structure associated with a group of documents includes analyzing a directory structure associated with the addressing scheme of the group of documents.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the pattern indicating an implied ranking is a pattern suggestive of documents organized according to an index.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to analyzing the organizational structure associated with a group of documents, analyzing content of one or more documents to identify text indicating a pattern suggestive of an implied ranking of the documents.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein said text is suggestive of a group of documents indexed based on an alphabetical or numerical order.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the particular source is i) a server, or group of servers, hosting a website, and ii) associated with an address identified by a human;

and said bot is programmed to analyze documents hosted at the particular server, or group of servers, hosting said website.

a search engine, providing search results to a keyword search wherein the search results are organized when presented, in part, based on a weighting scheme taking into consideration a score derived from the implied ranking of the documents analyzed by the bot.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a document identified as being associated with an implied ranking is provided a greater weight in said weighting scheme than a document that is not identified as being associated with an implied ranking.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein providing search results includes providing a link to each document satisfying the keyword search, wherein said links are presented in an order corresponding to an overall score based on said weighing scheme.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the index represents an arrangement of the documents in alphabetical or numerical order.

10. An apparatus comprising:

at least one bot programmed to automatically analyze the organizational structure associated with a group of documents hosted at a particular source to identify a pattern indicating an implied ranking of the documents; and

a search engine to provide search results to a keyword search wherein the search results are organized when presented, in part, based on a weighting scheme taking into consideration a score derived from the implied ranking of the documents analyzed by the bot.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the bot is programmed to analyze a directory structure associated with the addressing scheme of the group of documents.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the pattern indicating an implied ranking is a pattern suggestive of documents organized according to an index.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the index represents an arrangement of the documents in alphabetical or numerical order.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said bot is programmed to analyze content of one or more documents to identify text indicating a pattern suggestive of an implied ranking of the documents.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein said text is suggestive of a group of documents indexed based on an alphabetical or numerical order.

16. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the particular source is i) a server, or group of servers, hosting a website, and ii) associated with an address identified by a human;

and said bot is programmed to analyze documents hosted at the particular server, or group of servers, hosting said website.

17. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said search engine is configured to provide a greater weight in said weighting scheme to a document identified as being associated with an implied ranking than a document that is not identified as being associated with an implied ranking.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein said search engine is configured to provide a link to each document satisfying the keyword search, wherein said links are presented in an order corresponding to an overall score based on said weighting scheme.