SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING THE GEOGRAPHIC RANGE OF LOCAL INTENT IN A SEARCH QUERY

• US 20100281011A1
• Filed: 07/12/2010
• Published: 11/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Santi, Jim W. Delli, Demir, Ramazan
• Granted Patent: US 8,185,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/487 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0259 based on store location

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for determining the geographic range of a search query. A search query may include local intent which influences the results and advertisements that are displayed in response to the search query. The geographic range associated with the local intent may vary depending on the search query. The geographic range may be determined using probabilistic models that analyze historical searches to determine the geographic range of search queries.

Claims

1. In a computer readable storage medium having stored therein data representing instructions executable by a programmed processor for analyzing a location and geographic range of a search query, the storage medium comprising instructions operative for:

receiving the search query;

identifying a root term from the search query;

accessing a query history of the root term from a root term database, wherein the query history includes locations and geographic ranges associated with each root term stored in the root term database; and

analyzing the query history of the root term including each of the locations and geographic ranges stored in the query history that are associated with the root term from the search query;

determining, based on the analysis, the geographic range for the search query based on any locations or geographic ranges stored in the root term database for the root term from the search query.

2. The storage medium of claim 1 wherein the geographic range is determined based on a plurality of frequencies by which the root term is associated with a plurality of location bands in the query history of the root term, further wherein one of the plurality of frequencies of the root term is associated with one of the plurality of location bands.

3. The storage medium of claim 2 wherein the geographic range determination further comprises:

assigning a value for each of the location bands, wherein the values represent a geographic range;

multiplying the frequency in each of the location bands with the value of the location band associated with that frequency; and

combining the multiplied values for the root term to form a local intent value, wherein the local intent value determines the geographic range.

4. A system for determining a geographic range of a search query comprising:

a search engine coupled with a network and configured to receive the search query over the network;

an extractor coupled with the search engine and configured to extract a root term from the search query and to extract a location term from the search query when the search query includes a location term;

a processor coupled with the search engine and the extractor that is configured to determine a geographic range of the search query, wherein the determination is based on the location term when the search query includes the location term; and

a database coupled with the calculator and configured to store root terms extracted from a plurality of search queries and configured to store location terms associated with the stored root terms;

wherein, when the search query does not include the location term, the processor determines the geographic range for the root term from associations stored in the database.

5. The system of claim 4 further comprising a tagger coupled with the processor and configured to assign a value to each of the location terms, wherein the value is representative of the geographic range.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the processor determines the geographic range based on the location terms stored in the database that are associated with the root term from the search query.

7. The system of claim 4 further comprising:

a content provider coupled with the search engine and configured to provide content in response to the search query; and

a matching engine coupled with the content provider and configured to compare the search query with the content available from the content provider.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the content provider comprises an advertisement provider, further wherein the content provided is at least one advertisement.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the at least one advertisement is geographically relevant based on the determined geographic range.

10. The system of claim 7 further comprising a user device coupled with the network and configured to receive the provided content over the network in response to submitting the search query.

11. The system of claim 4 further comprising at least one of an internal data source or an external data source coupled with the database and configured to provide the plurality of search queries.

12. A method for compiling geographic associations for search queries comprising:

accessing a volume of search queries;

identifying a root term and, when present, a location term for each of the queries from the volume of search queries;

determining a local intent or a geographic range for the root term based on the location term for that query; and

generating a root term database that includes the identified root terms and the local intent or the geographic range associated with the identified root term.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the volume of search queries are captured from prior search queries.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the prior search queries comprise queries that are received over a period of time that are added to the volume of search queries.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein a source of the prior search queries comprises a web search engine.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein a source of the prior search queries comprises a local search engine.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein a location is identified from the local search engine for local searches and that location determine the local intent or the geographic range for each of the local searches.

18. The method of claim 12 wherein the location terms comprise an explicit location included as part of a search query.

19. The method of claim 12 wherein the local intent or the geographic range for the root term is determined implicitly when no location term is explicitly included with that root term.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the implicit determination comprises identifying prior local intent or geographic range associations with the root term from other search queries.