Personalization of Web Search Results Using Term, Category, and Link-Based User Profiles
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented method of personalizing search results of a search engine, comprising:
- at a search engine system having a one or more processors and memory storing programs executed by the one or more processors;
accessing a user profile for a user, wherein content of the user profile is generated from user information that includes information derived from anchor text contained in documents that link to documents accessed by the user;
receiving a search query from the user;
identifying a set of search result documents that match the search query;
assigning a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of search result documents;
assigning a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document and the user profile;
ranking the subset of search result documents according to their respective personalized scores;
providing the ranked subset of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and
updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the ranked subset of search result documents.
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Abstract
A system and method for creating a user profile and for using the user profile to order search results returned by a search engine. The user profile is based on search queries submitted by a user, the user'"'"'s specific interaction with the documents identified by the search engine and personal information provided by the user. Terms for the user profile may be selected from the documents accessed by the user by performing paragraph sampling or context analysis. Generic scores associated with the search results are modulated by the user profile to measure their relevance to a user'"'"'s preference and interest. The search results are re-ordered accordingly so that the most relevant results appear on the top of the list. User profiles can be created and/or stored on the client side or server side of a client-server network environment.
109 Citations
30 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method of personalizing search results of a search engine, comprising:
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at a search engine system having a one or more processors and memory storing programs executed by the one or more processors; accessing a user profile for a user, wherein content of the user profile is generated from user information that includes information derived from anchor text contained in documents that link to documents accessed by the user; receiving a search query from the user; identifying a set of search result documents that match the search query; assigning a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of search result documents; assigning a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document and the user profile; ranking the subset of search result documents according to their respective personalized scores; providing the ranked subset of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the ranked subset of search result documents. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A computer-implemented method of personalizing search results of a search engine, comprising:
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creating a plurality of user profiles for a plurality of users, each user profile including at least a user'"'"'s identification number and information derived from documents visited by the user, including information derived from anchor text contained in documents that link to the documents visited by the user; receiving a search query from a user of the plurality of users, the search query including at least one query term and the user'"'"'s identification number; retrieving a user profile that matches the user'"'"'s identification number; generating a personalized query strategy from the search query and the user profile; selecting a personalized set of documents from the Internet according to the personalized query strategy, each document having a generic ranking score based at least in part on the relevance of the document to the search query; assigning to each document in the set a personalized ranking score based at least in part on the user profile and the document'"'"'s generic ranking score; ranking the set of documents according to their generic and personalized ranking scores; providing the ranked set of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and updating the user profile of the user based on a document selected by the user from the set of search result documents. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A search engine system, comprising:
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one or more central processing units for executing programs; an interface for receiving information; and a search engine module executable by the one or more central processing units, the module comprising; instructions for accessing a user profile for a user, wherein content of the user profile is generated from user information that includes information derived from anchor text contained in documents that link to documents accessed by the user; instructions for receiving a search query from a user; instructions for identifying a set of search result documents that match the search query; instructions for assigning a generic score to each document of at least a plurality of the search result documents; instructions for assigning personalized scores to each document of the plurality of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document and the user'"'"'s user profile; instructions for ranking at least the plurality of the search result documents according to personalized scores; instructions for providing the ranked set of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and instructions for updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the set of search result documents. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs for execution by one or more processors, the one or more programs comprising:
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instructions for accessing a user profile for a user, wherein content of the user profile is generated from user information that includes information derived from anchor text contained in documents that link to documents accessed by the user; instructions for receiving a search query from a user; instructions for identifying a set of search result documents that match the search query; instructions for assigning a generic score to each document of at least a plurality of the search result documents; instructions for assigning personalized scores to each document of the plurality of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document and the user'"'"'s user profile; instructions for ranking at least the plurality of the search result documents according to their personalized scores; instructions for providing the ranked set of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and instructions for updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the set of search result documents.
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29. A computer-implemented method of personalizing search results of a search engine, comprising:
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at a search engine system having a one or more processors and memory storing programs executed by the one or more processors; identifying a set of documents accessed by a user; generating a user profile for the user that includes terms selected by sampling the identified set of documents, wherein sampling a document includes; excluding a set of predefined terms; excluding paragraphs whose lengths are less than a predefined minimum length; and limiting the number of terms selected from each paragraph to a predefined maximum number; receiving a search query from the user; identifying a set of search result documents that match the search query; assigning a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of search result documents; assigning a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document and the user profile; ranking the subset of search result documents according to their respective personalized scores; providing the ranked subset of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the ranked subset of search result documents.
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30. A computer-implemented method of personalizing search results of a search engine, comprising:
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at a search engine system having a one or more processors and memory storing programs executed by the one or more processors; identifying a plurality of context patterns from a predefined set of documents, wherein each respective context pattern comprises a respective variable term and one or more respective fixed terms, and the respective variable term together with the respective fixed terms are in an identified ordered sequence; generating a user profile for a user, wherein content of the user profile includes terms identified by applying the plurality of context patterns to documents accessed by the user; receiving a search query from the user; identifying a set of search result documents that match the search query; assigning a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of search result documents; assigning a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document and the user profile; ranking the subset of search result documents according to their respective personalized scores; providing the ranked subset of search result documents to a client system associated with the user; and updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the ranked subset of search result documents.
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Specification