UPDATING A SEARCH INDEX USING REPORTED BROWSER HISTORY DATA

• US 20120150831A1
• Filed: 12/09/2010
• Published: 06/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: SUN, WALTER, AHMED, JUNAID, BAILEY, PETER, LI, YIPENG, DANDEKAR, NIKHIL, PARTHASARATHY, SASI, CHEN, XIN, ZHANG, XIAO
• Granted Patent: US 9,424,356 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• 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 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are provided for updating a search index with new uniform resource locators (URLs) and spiking URLs with increased user interest. History data, provided from browser applications residing on users'"'"' computers that indicate URLs accessed by the users, is parsed to identify new/previously unknown URLs. The history data also indicates URLs in which there is increased interest based on a number of recent hits as compared to an average number of hits determined over time. Author postings of new URLs to social networking sites and a quality rating of the authors may also be used to identify and filter new URLs. Search indexes are updated with the new and spiking URL data. As such, lag time between posting of new URLs and spiking of URL interest and inclusion of this data in a search index is greatly decreased.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for updating a search index to identify documents with spiking interest, the method comprising:

periodically receiving, at a first computing device having a processor and a memory, a history file from each of a plurality of second computing devices, the history file including a uniform resource locator (URLs) that has been accessed via a respective second computing device;

determining a number of instances of the URL in the history files occurring in a predetermined time period;

determining an average number of instances of the URL in the history files occurring in the predetermined time period over a predetermined number of days;

comparing the number of instances of the URL to the average number of instances of the URL over the predetermined number of days;

identifying the URL as a spiking URL when the number of instances of the URL is at least a predetermined amount greater than the average number of instances of the URL occurring over the predetermined number of days; and

updating a search index to indicate the spiking URL, the search index being usable by a search engine to identify search results for a search query.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined number of days is seven or an integer multiple of seven.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined amount is greater than twice the average number of instances of the URL over the predetermined number of days.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the second computing devices includes a browser application that generates the history file and communicates the history file to the first computing device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein a user authorizes the browser application to track URLs accessed via the respective second computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a score is generated for the spiking URL based at least in part on the comparing of the number of instances of the URL to the average number of instances of the URL over the predetermined number of days.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the search index is a fresh index that is periodically updated in intervals of less than one hour and the score is used to aid in ranking URLs in fresh index.

8. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for updating a search index with newly published documents, the method comprising:

providing an application to a first computing device having a processor and a memory, the application configured to generate a history file that includes an indication of each of one or more uniform resource locators (URLs) accessed by a browser application executing on the first computing device, wherein the application and the browser application are the same or different;

receiving the history file at a second computing device having a processor and a memory;

identifying, by the second computing device, a new URL from the one or more URLs indicated in the history file, the new URL being associated with a document that was previously unknown to the second computing device; and

updating a search index with the new URL, the search index being usable by a search engine to identify search results for a search query.

9. The computer-readable media of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving an authorization from a user to allow the application to track the indications of the one or more URLs accessed by the first computing device.

10. The computer-readable media of claim 8, wherein the history file is received by the second computing device periodically and the history file includes an indication of each of one or more URLs accessed by the browser application since the a previous history file was received.

11. The computer-readable media of claim 8, wherein the search index is updated with the new URL within thirty minutes of identifying the new URL.

12. The computer-readable media of claim 8, further comprising:

calculating a score for the new URL based at least partially on a number of instances of the new URL in history files received from the application executing on a plurality of first computing devices.

13. The computer-readable media of claim 12, further comprising:

providing a list of newly posted URLs posted by authors on one or more social networking websites; and

generating a second score for each of the newly posted URLs based at least partially on a quality of a posting author and a number of authors posting the newly posted URL,

wherein the quality of the posting author is based at least partially on the posting author'"'"'s time of posting the newly posted URL and the posting author'"'"'s history of posting newly posted URLs.

14. The computer-readable media of claim 13, further comprising:

identifying a match between the new URL and one of the newly posted URLs in the list of newly posted URLs; and

combining the score for the new URL with score of the one of the newly posted URLs, now a combined score.

15. The computer-readable media of claim 14, wherein the combined score is employed to determine whether to update the search index with the new URL.

16. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for updating a search index with new and spiking uniform resource locators (URLs), the method comprising:

periodically receiving, at a first computing device having a processor and a memory, a history file from each of a plurality of second computing devices, the history file including one or more URLs that have been accessed via a respective second computing device;

identifying, by the first computing device, a first new URL from one or more of the history files, the first new URL associated with a document that was previously unknown to the first computing device;

determining a number of instances of a second URL of the one or more URLs included in the history files and within a predetermined time period, wherein the first new URL and the second URL are the same or different;

determining an average number of instances of the second URL in the predetermined time period over a predetermined number of days;

comparing the number of instances of the second URL to the average number of instances of the second URL over the predetermined number of days;

identifying the second URL as a spiking URL when the number of instances of the second URL is at least a predetermined amount greater than the average number of instances of the second URL over the predetermined number of days;

updating a search index with the first new URL; and

updating the search index to indicate the spiking URL, the search index being usable by a search engine to identify search results for a search query.

17. The computer-readable media of claim 16, further comprising:

generating a score for the first new URL based at least partially on a number of the second computing devices from the plurality that include an indication of the first new URL in a respective history file; and

determining whether to update the search index with the first new URL based on the score.

18. The computer-readable media of claim 17, further comprising:

identifying a third new URL from a list of URLs posted by authors on a social networking website, the third new URL not being previously included in the search index, and the third new URL being the same or different than the first new URL;

determining a quality of an author that posted the third new URL on the social networking website, wherein the quality of the author is based at least on a time that the author posted the third new URL and the author'"'"'s history of posting URLs that have not been previously included in the search index;

generating a second score for the third new URL based at least in part on the quality of the author;

19. The computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein determining whether to update the search index with the first new URL based on the first score is also based on the second score when the first new URL and the third new URL are the same.

20. The computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the search index is updated with the first new URL within thirty minutes of identifying the first new URL.