METHOD AND SYSTEM TO FACILITATE A SEARCH OF AN INFORMATION RESOURCE

• US 20120095975A1
• Filed: 12/21/2011
• Published: 04/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Billingsley, Eric Noel, Monier, Louis Marcel Gino, Arora, Aditya
• Granted Patent: US 8,954,411 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/705
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90 Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/906 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

Methods and systems to facilitate a search of an information resource is disclosed. In various embodiments, a distribution of a plurality of data items across a plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to an attribute is identified. The attribute may be shared by at least two of the plurality of data items. Based on a determining that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes at least two peaks, the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute is communicated.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least one processor;

an analyzing module implemented by the at least one processor and configured to;

identify a distribution of a plurality of data items across a plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to an attribute, the attribute being shared by at least two of the plurality of data items; and

determine that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes at least two peaks;

a communication module configured to, based on the determining that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes the at least two peaks, communicate the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication module further bases the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges on a determination that the communication would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items than a communication of an additional distribution, the additional distribution being a distribution of the data items across an additional plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the determination that the communication would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items than the communication of the additional distribution is based on a determination that the additional distribution has at least one of no modes, one mode, and no peaks.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes communicating a user interface that includes a plurality of attribute value selectors that correspond to the attribute value ranges.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein a selection of an attribute value selector of the plurality of attribute value selectors results in a filtering of the plurality of data items by the attribute value range corresponding to the attribute value selector.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the analyzing module identifies the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges by accessing a plurality of entries in a hash table.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the analyzing module selects the hash table based on whether the attribute is a sub-range attribute or an exact-match attribute.

8. A method comprising:

identifying a distribution of a plurality of data items across a plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to an attribute, the attribute being shared by at least two of the plurality of data items; and

determining that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes at least two peaks;

based on the determining that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes the at least two peaks, communicating the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute.

9. The method claim 8, wherein the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges is further based on a determination that the communication would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items than a communication of an additional distribution, the additional distribution being a distribution of the data items across an additional plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the determination that the communication would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items than the communication of the additional distribution is based on a determination that the additional distribution has at least one of no modes, one mode, and no peaks.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes communicating a user interface that includes a plurality of attribute value selectors that correspond to the attribute value ranges.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the identifying of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes accessing a plurality of entries in a hash table.

13. The method of 12, further comprising selecting the hash table based on whether the attribute is a sub-range attribute or an exact-match attribute.

14. A machine-readable storage medium storing a set of instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to perform operations including:

identifying a distribution of a plurality of data items across a plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to an attribute, the attribute being shared by at least two of the plurality of data items; and

determining that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes at least two peaks;

based on the determining that the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes the at least two peaks, communicating the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute.

15. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges is further based on a determination that the communication would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items than a communication of an additional distribution, the additional distribution being a distribution of the data items across an additional plurality of attribute value ranges corresponding to the attribute.

16. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the determination that the communication would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items than the communication of the additional distribution is based on a determination that the additional distribution has at least one of no modes, one mode, and no peaks.

17. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes communicating a user interface that includes a plurality of attribute value selectors that correspond to the attribute value ranges.

18. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein a selection of an attribute value selector of the plurality of attribute value selectors results in a filtering of the plurality of data items by the attribute value range corresponding to the attribute value selector.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the identifying of the distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute value ranges includes accessing a plurality of entries in a hash table.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 19, the operations further including selecting the hash table based on whether the attribute is a sub-range attribute or an exact-match attribute.