METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RECORDING SEARCH TRAILS ACROSS ONE OR MORE SEARCH ENGINES IN A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

• US 20090030876A1
• Filed: 01/23/2004
• Published: 01/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/19/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nigel Hamilton
• Original Assignee: Nigel Hamilton
• Inventors: Hamilton, Nigel
• Granted Patent: US 8,572,100 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

An automated method for recording sites accessed by a client in a communications network, the method including the steps of: detecting submission of a search query (10) from the client to one or more search engines; and recording a search trail (11) of one or more parameters of sites accessed consecutively following return of search query results to the client.

Claims

1. An automated method for recording sites accessed by a client in a communications network, the method including the steps of:

detecting submission of a search query from the client to one or more search engines; and

recording a search trail of one or more parameters of sites accessed consecutively following return of search query results to the client.

2. The automated method of claim 1, wherein the step of detecting submission of the search query includes:

detecting submission of a completed form object from the client;

determining if part of the form object matches a known search command format of any of the plurality of search engines.

3. The automated method of claim 2, wherein the search command format includes the network address of a search engine program for executing the search query.

4. The automated method of claim 3, wherein the search command format further includes one or more search parameters identifying a user-entered search query.

5. The automated method of claim 2, wherein the step of detecting submission of a completed form object by the client includes:

locating form objects in an object model of content served to a client; and

adding a routine to each form object to enable interception of the completed form object upon submission.

6. The automated method of claim 5, wherein the step of locating all form objects in a document object model of content served to a client is carried out after the content has been served to the client.

7. The automated method of claim 6, wherein the content is an HTML document, and all form objects in a document object model of the HTML document are located once a DocumentComplete event occurs.

8. The automated method of claim 7, wherein the HMTL document includes a GET or a POST form.

9. The automated method of claim 1, wherein the step of recording one or more parameters of the sites accessed consecutively from the search query results is optionally selectable at the client once a search query is detected.

10. The automated method of claim 1, wherein the step of recording one or more parameters of the sites accessed consecutively from the search query results includes:

recording the network address of the consecutively accessed sites.

11. The automated method of claim 10, wherein the step of recording one or more parameters of the sites accessed consecutively from the search query results further includes:

recording one or more of a user identifier, the network address of a referring site, the network address of the client and search term or terms entered by the user at the client.

12. The automated method of claim 10, wherein the step of recording one or more parameters of the sites accessed consecutively from the search query results further includes:

transmitting the one or more parameters identified at the client to a trail recorder server for recordal.

13. The automated method of claim 12, and further including:

initially recording the one or more parameters in a RAM table at the trail recorder server.

14. The automated method of claim 13, and further including:

periodically saving RAM table data to disk-based tables at the trail recorder server.

15. The automated method of claim 14, wherein a first disk-based table stores data characterising each search trail.

16. The automated method of claim 14, wherein a second disk-based table stores data characterising the consecutive sites accessed in each search trail.

17. The automated method of claim 1, wherein the number of consecutively accessed sites is limited to a predetermined maximum.

18. The automated method of claim 1, and further including:

maintaining an adapter table of known search command formats for the plurality of search engines.

19. The automated method of claim 18, and further including:

periodically validating the search command formats maintained in the adapter table.

20. The automated method of claim 18, and further including:

automatically identifying a search command format of a new search engine; and

updating the adapter table.

21. The automated method of claim 18, and further including:

collecting search information identifying a search box page of a search engine; and

identifying the search command format from the search information.

22. The automated method of claim 21, wherein the step of collecting search information includes:

collecting the HTML code of the search box; and

parsing the HTML code to identify the search command format.

23. The automated method of claim 9, and further including:

matching the search query to previous search queries to identify related search trails.

24. The automated method of claims 23, wherein the step of matching the search query to previous search queries includes:

conducting a full text search on the search query and previous search queries.

25. The automated method of claim 23, wherein the step of matching the search query to previous search queries includes:

limiting the related search trails to search trails resulting from search queries from a same user.

26. The automated method of claim 23, wherein the related search trails include search trails resulting from search queries from a same user and other users.

27. The automated method of claim 23, and further including:

presenting the related search trails at the client.

28. The automated method of claim 27, wherein the step of presenting the related search trails includes:

ordering the related search results by one or more ranking criteria.

29. The automated method of claim 28, wherein the ranking criteria include any one or more of date, inverse document frequency match, target search engine, user identifier, or trail weight indicative of the cumulative frequency of user visits to steps in a related search trail.

30. The automated method of claim 1, wherein the communications network is the Internet, an intranet, an extranet or other network running client/server applications.

31. Them automated method of claim 1, wherein the one or more search engines are maintained on the client.

32. A system for recording sites accessed by a client in a communications network, the system including:

a search query detector for detecting submission of a search query from the client to one of a plurality of search engines; and

a search trail recorder for recording a search trail of one or more parameters of sites accessed consecutively following return of search query results to the client.

33. The system of claim 32, and further including:

an adapter manager for maintaining an adapter table of known search command formats for the plurality of search engines.

34. The system of claim 32, and further including:

a trail searcher for matching the search query to previous search queries to identify related search trails.

35. The system of claim 32, wherein the search query detector is a toolbar, browser add on or extension, deskbar, agent, proxy or like client-side application.

36. A search query detector for use with the system of claim 32.

37. A search trail recorder for use with the system of claim 32.

38. An adapter manger for use with a system of claim 33.

39. A trail searcher for use with a system of claim 34.

40. Computer software including program instructions for carrying out the method performed by the search query detector and/or search trail recorder of claim 32.