INTELLIGENT ENHANCEMENT OF A SEARCH RESULT SNIPPET

• US 20100228744A1
• Filed: 02/24/2009
• Published: 09/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Agrawal, Nitin, Craswell, Nicholas Eric, Padovitz, Amir J., Zhou, Song
• Granted Patent: US 8,250,053 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/751
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A method, system, and medium are provided for enhancing a search result snippet that is associated with a URL. Potentially descriptive terms of the URL are identified by reconciling multiple sources of terms related to the URL. One aspect includes comparing search terms of historically relevant queries to anchor text for the URL. The search result snippet might be intelligently enhanced by causing common terms to be visibly distinguished when the snippet is displayed.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of enhancing a search result snippet associated with a URL described by anchor text, the method comprising:

identifying one or more search terms from a first historically relevant query, which returns the URL as a search result;

determining that at least a portion of the one or more search terms comprises a subset of the anchor text for the URL; and

causing one or more subsets to be visibly distinguished within the search result snippet when the search result snippet is displayed to a user in response to a search query.

2. The media of claim 1, wherein the search result snippet comprises one or more of a title of the URL and a body of terms associated with the URL.

3. The media of claim 1,

wherein the first historically relevant query is compiled with one or more other historically relevant queries;

wherein each historically relevant query, when previously input into a search engine, generated respective search results;

wherein each of the respective search results included the URL; and

wherein the URL was selected by a user.

4. The media of claim 3, wherein the first historically relevant query and the one or more other historically relevant queries comprise a descending order from a first-ranked query that resulted in the URL being selected a highest number of times to a last-ranked query that resulted in the URL being selected a least number of times.

5. The media of claim 4, wherein the first historically relevant query comprises the first-ranked query.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein the method includes determining that the one or more search terms comprises a quantity within a range.

7. The media of claim 6,

wherein the range includes an upper limit comprising a terms-per-string maximum;

and

wherein the terms-per-string maximum comprises a limit on a quantity of terms that can be visibly distinguished in a continuous string of terms in the search result snippet.

8. The media of claim 1, wherein the method includes determining that the one or more search terms does not comprise one or more excluded words.

9. The media of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the one or more search terms comprises a subset of the anchor text if terms included in the anchor text comprise one or more of:

an exact match of the at least a portion;

an alternate spelling of the at least a portion;

a misspelling of the at least a portion;

an alternate tense of the at least a portion;

a synonym of the at least a portion;

the at least a portion in a rearranged order;

the at least a portion including additional words; and

the at least a portion including intervening words.

10. The media of claim 1, wherein the subset to be visibly distinguished comprises one or more of:

an exact match of the subset of the anchor text;

an alternate spelling of the subset of the anchor text;

a misspelling of the subset of the anchor text;

an alternate tense of the subset of the anchor text;

a synonym of the subset of the anchor text;

the subset of the anchor text in a rearranged order;

the subset of the anchor text including additional words; and

the subset of the anchor text including intervening words.

11. A system for carrying out a method of enhancing a search result snippet associated with a URL described by anchor text, the system comprising:

a search-term referencing component for referencing one or more search terms of a query that is historically relevant to the URL;

a comparison component for determining whether at least a portion of the one or more search terms comprises a subset of the anchor text for the URL; and

a display component for causing one or more subsets to be visibly distinguished within the search result snippet when the search result snippet is displayed to a user in response to a search query.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising a term-filtering component, wherein the term-filtering component determines:

whether the one or more search terms include a quantity within a range; and

whether the one or more search terms include an excluded word.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising an anchor-text referencing component for referencing the anchor text.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the one or more search terms and the anchor text are referenced in one or more databases and wherein the one or more databases store the anchor text and the historically relevant query in a query-URL-click graph.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more subsets to be visibly distinguished are subject to a strings-per-snippet maximum.

16. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of enhancing a search result snippet associated with a URL described by anchor text, the method comprising:

referencing a first database to retrieve a first historically relevant query of the URL;

identifying search terms from the first historically relevant query;

determining that the search terms;

(1) comprise a quantity within a range; and

(2) do not include excluded words;

referencing a second database to retrieve anchor text for the URL;

determining that at least a portion of the search terms comprises a subset of the anchor text; and

causing one or more subsets to be visibly distinguished within the search result snippet when the search result snippet is displayed to a user in response to a search query.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein if the search terms of the first historically relevant query either (1) comprise either a quantity outside the range or excluded words, or (2) do not comprise a subset of the anchor text, the method further comprises:

referencing the first database to retrieve a second historically relevant query of the URL;

identifying search terms from the second historically relevant query;

determining that the search terms of the second historically relevant query;

(1) comprise a quantity within a range, and

(2) do not include excluded words;

determining that at least a portion of the search terms of the second historically relevant query comprises a subset of the anchor text; and

causing one or more subsets to be visibly distinguished within the search result snippet when the search result snippet is displayed to a user in response to a search query.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the first database is referenced incident to performance of a search that generates the search result snippet as a result.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises, after determining that at least a portion of the search terms comprises a subset of the anchor text, preparing the subset to be visibly distinguished.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises, incident to a search being performed in which the search result snippet is generated, referencing the subset prior to causing the one or more subsets to be visibly distinguished.