Mobile Friendly Internet Searches

• US 20120271820A1
• Filed: 07/03/2012
• Published: 10/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Serdy, Frank S. Jr., Romatka, Rainer J., Hennessy, Tyler E., Brench, Neil A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,292,593 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1737 for reducing power consumption or coping with limited storage space, e.g. in mobile devices saving storage space on storage devices G06F3/0608; power saving in storage systems G06F3/0625
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Mobile friendly interne searches are enabled by determining if individual interne sites are mobile friendly. In a described implementation, a mobile-friendliness indication is determined for an interne site. The determined mobile-friendliness indication is stored in association with the interne site in an index that may be used for interne searching. In another described implementation, a data structure comprises an interne index with multiple interne site entries having one or more associated mobile-friendliness indications. The mobile-friendliness indications may be general affirmative indications of mobile friendliness or specific indications of mobile-friendliness that identify a specific user agent type. In yet another described implementation, a search request having search terms is received, and a search is performed based thereon to produce a search results set. If the search requestor is a mobile device, the search results are ordered responsive to mobile-friendliness indications associated with the internet sites of the search results set.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a processor, the method comprising:

receiving a search request having at least one search term from a search requestor;

performing a search based at least in part on the at least one search term to produce a set of search results including uniform resource locators (URLs);

determining if the search requestor comprises a mobile device; and

if the search requestor is determined to comprise the mobile device, ordering the set of search results identified as being mobile relevant based at least in part on mobile-relevance indications associated with the URLs of the set of search results.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing to the mobile device at least a portion of the set of search results as ordered responsive to the mobile-relevance indications associated with the URLs of the set of search results.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the search requestor is not determined to comprise the mobile device, providing at least a portion of the set of search results as ordered using a standard relevance ranking algorithm.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

inspecting a user agent string received from the search requestor.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the ordering comprises:

moving at least one URL of the set of search results to a higher ranking position if the at least one URL is associated with one or more mobile-relevance indications.

6. The method of claim 1, in which the mobile-relevance indications comprise one or more mobile-friendliness indications.

7. The method of claim 1, in which the set of search results comprise one or more search results identified as being mobile-friendly.

8. The method of claim 1, in which the set of search results identified as being mobile relevant are examined based at least in part on substantive content.

9. A computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform acts comprising:

identifying a mobile device to receive a search request, the search request having at least one search term;

performing a search based at least in part on the at least one search term; and

ordering a set of search results in response to the at least one search term, the set of search results identified as being mobile relevant based at least in part on mobile-relevance indications associated with uniform resource locators (URLs) of the set of search results.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, further comprising:

providing to the mobile device at least a portion of the set of search results as ordered responsive to the mobile-relevance indications associated with the URLs of the set of search results.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, further comprising:

providing at least a portion of the set of search results as ordered using a standard relevance ranking algorithm.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, further comprising:

inspecting a user agent string received from a search requestor.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, in which the ordering comprises:

moving at least one URL of the set of search results to a higher ranking position if the at least one URL is associated with one or more mobile-relevance indications.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, in which the mobile-relevance indications comprise one or more mobile-friendliness indications.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, in which the set of search results comprise one or more search results identified as being mobile-friendly.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, in which the set of search results identified as being mobile relevant are examined based at least in part on substantive content.

17. A method implemented by a processor, the method comprising:

requesting a first response from a first website while impersonating a user agent for a traditional device;

requesting a second response from a second website while impersonating a mobile-relevance user agent;

performing a comparison of the first response received to the second response received; and

determining if the first website or the second website is mobile relevant based at least in part on a mobile-relevance indication from the comparison of the first response received to the second response received.

18. The method of claim 17, in which the first response and the second response are examined based at least in part on substantive content from the first website and the second website.

19. The method of claim 17, in which the mobile-relevance indications comprise one or more mobile-friendliness indications.

20. The method of claim 17, in which the first website or the second website is mobile-friendly.