SEARCH OVER STRUCTURED DATA

• US 20110202517A1
• Filed: 04/22/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Brunsman, Jonathan, Sirajuddin, Sarah, Agarwal, Puneet, Sundararajan, Arvind, Reddy, Bindu, Kozenski, Jennifer L., Bhaya, Gaurav Ravindra, Mosberger, Ning, Kale, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,762,372 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/164 File meta data generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• 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 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation

Abstract

A user can refine a search over structured data by specifying that a label or an attribute value be used to further filter the results of a query.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying attributes that are associated with data items in a collection;

determining, for each attribute, a frequency with which the attribute has previously been used by users of a search engine to refine a search query;

selecting a subset of the attributes which have a highest respective frequency;

providing to a client device a search engine results page that includes a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items, and a respective representation of each of the attributes in the subset and of no other attributes; and

providing to the client device, in response to a selection of a representation included in the search engine results page, a control for display on the search engine results page, the control for receiving a query refinement in the form of a value for the attribute represented by the selected representation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the subset includes fewer than all of the attributes.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving from the client device the selection of the representation of the one or more of the attributes.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving the query refinement from the client device; and

providing to the client device a second search engine results page comprising a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items that satisfy the query refinement.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying attributes comprises identifying user-provided attributes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying attributes comprises:

providing to the client device a candidate attribute; and

receiving from the client device a signal indicating that a user has accepted or rejected the candidate attribute.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying attributes comprises:

deriving attributes from tags associated with the data items.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the tags comprise HyperText Markup Language (HTML) tags.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein, for each item, identifying the attributes comprises:

determining an information type of a data item; and

using a data structure that maps information types to attributes to determine, from the information type of the data item, the attributes associated with the data item.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising:

searching the data items, wherein the attributes are identified before any searching occurs on the data items.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising:

providing a user interface that allows a provider of particular data items to edit the attributes associated with the particular data items; and

receiving information through the user interface, the information changing an attribute associated with one or more of the particular data items.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the selection is a user selection.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the selection is an automated selection.

14. The method of claim 1, comprising:

receiving a search query from the client device; and

selecting the two or more data items from the collection of data items, the two or more data items satisfying the received search query, and the two or more data items collectively having associated with them first attributes.

15. The method of claim 11, comprising receiving a selection of data items satisfying the received search query and the query refinement.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the control comprises a text entry field and a label for the text entry field.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the subset of the attributes comprises selecting attributes which have a highest frequency and other attributes that have been pre-designated as core attributes.

18. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a machine-readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions that, when read by one or more computers, operate to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

identifying attributes that are associated with data items in a collection;

determining, for each attribute, a frequency with which the attribute has previously been used by users of a search engine to refine a search query;

selecting a subset of the attributes which have a highest respective frequency;

providing to a client device a search engine results page that includes a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items, and a respective representation of each of the attributes in the subset and of no other attributes; and

providing to the client device, in response to a selection of a representation included in the search engine results page, a control for display on the search engine results page, the control for receiving a query refinement in the form of a value for the attribute represented by the selected representation.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the operations comprise:

receiving the query refinement from the client device; and

providing to the client device a second search engine results page comprising a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items that satisfy the query refinement.

20. A system comprising:

one or more computers; and

a computer-readable medium coupled to the one or more computers having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

identifying attributes that are associated with data items in a collection;

determining, for each attribute, a frequency with which the attribute has previously been used by users of a search engine to refine a search query;

selecting a subset of the attributes which have a highest respective frequency;

providing to a client device a search engine results page that includes a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items, and a respective representation of each of the attributes in the subset and of no other attributes; and

providing to the client device, in response to a selection of a representation included in the search engine results page, a control for display on the search engine results page, the control for receiving a query refinement in the form of a value for the attribute represented by the selected representation.