SYSTEM OF RANKING SEARCH RESULTS BASED ON QUERY SPECIFIC POSITION BIAS
First Claim
1. A method for transforming search results for a search performed by a search engine, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) logging a search query, search results in a ranked position order and click through counts for the search results in a storage location;
(b) determining a goodness value for each stored search result for the query, the goodness value for each search result representing a relevance of the search result to the query;
(c) determining a position bias for each search result position for the query based in part on the particular query;
(d) transforming the search results by reordering the ranked position of the results based on a probability that a particular search result will be clicked on, the probability based on a product of the goodness value determined in said step (b) and the position bias determined in said step (c); and
(e) displaying the search results in the reordered ranked positions determined in said step (d) upon a next entry of the query.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A model based on a generalization of the Examination Hypothesis is disclosed that states that for a given query, the user click probability on a document in a given position is proportional to the relevance of the document and a query specific position bias. Based on this model the relevance and position bias parameters are learned for different queries and documents. This is done by translating the model into a system of linear equations that can be solved to obtain the best fit relevance and position bias values. A cumulative analysis of the position bias curves may be performed for different queries to understand the nature of these curves for navigational and informational queries. In particular, the position bias parameter values may be computed for a large number of queries. Such an exercise reveals whether the query is informational or navigational. A method is also proposed to solve the problem of dealing with sparse click data by inferring the goodness of unclicked documents for a given query from the clicks associated with similar queries.
48 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for transforming search results for a search performed by a search engine, the method comprising the steps of:
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(a) logging a search query, search results in a ranked position order and click through counts for the search results in a storage location; (b) determining a goodness value for each stored search result for the query, the goodness value for each search result representing a relevance of the search result to the query; (c) determining a position bias for each search result position for the query based in part on the particular query; (d) transforming the search results by reordering the ranked position of the results based on a probability that a particular search result will be clicked on, the probability based on a product of the goodness value determined in said step (b) and the position bias determined in said step (c); and (e) displaying the search results in the reordered ranked positions determined in said step (d) upon a next entry of the query. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for transforming search results for a search performed by a search engine, the method comprising the steps of:
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(a) logging a search query, search results in a ranked position order and click through counts for the search results in a storage location; (b) transforming the ranking of the search results for the query by the step of determining a probability, c(d, j), that a search result document d at a position j in the ranked position order for the query will be clicked on by solving a system of equations c(d, j)=g(d)p(j), where g(d) is a goodness value based on a probability that the search result document d will be clicked on if positioned in the highest ranked position for the query, and p(j) is a position bias based on a ratio of the probability that a search result at a given ranked position j is clicked to the probability of that search result being clicked if positioned in the highest ranked position, wherein position bias may vary from query to query, and wherein the system of equations is obtained from the stored instances of the search results for the query; and (c) displaying the search results in the reordered ranked positions determined in said step (b) upon a next entry of the query. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A computer storage medium having computer-executable instructions for programming a processor to perform a method of transforming search results for a search performed by a search engine, the method comprising the steps of:
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(a) logging a search query, search results in a ranked position order and click through counts for the search results in a storage location; (b) determining goodness values, g(d), for each stored search result document d for the query, the goodness value for each search result representing a relevance of the search result to the query; (c) determining a position bias, p(j), for each search result position j for the query based in part on the particular query, position bias for a search result position being a ratio of the probability that a search result at a given ranked position j is clicked to the probability of that search result being clicked if positioned in the highest ranked position, said steps (b) and (c) being performed by solving for the values of g(d) and p(j) using a system of equations in the form of c(d, j)=g(d)p(j), where c(d, j) is the probability that, for stored instances of the same query, a document d in a position j was clicked; (d) transforming the search results by reordering the ranked position of the results based on a probability that a particular search result will be clicked on based on said step (c); and (e) displaying the search results in the reordered ranked positions determined in said step (d) upon a next entry of the query. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification