QUERY REFINEMENT IN A BROWSER TOOLBAR

• US 20130132357A1
• Filed: 11/17/2011
• Published: 05/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: EDGAR, TIMOTHY, CHITNIS, AMBARISH, WHITE, RYEN WILLIAM, DMITRIEV, PAVEL, AGEERU, RAJANIKANTH, DAN, OVIDIU, TANG, LIN
• Granted Patent: US 9,189,550 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9532 Query formulation

Abstract

Embodiment described herein are generally directed to a toolbar extension of a web browser that grabs a user'"'"'s search engine query and suggests a refined search query known to yield better search results. The toolbar recognizes the web page the user is on as being associated with a search engine and retrieves the user'"'"'s search query. The toolbar interacts with a refinement component on a server, and the refinement component determines a refined search query based on confidence scores assigned to data mined from a data center affiliated with different search engine (one related to the toolbar). The refined search query is returned and displayed in a search field of the toolbar, allowing the user to easily run the refined search on the different search engine.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for displaying a refined search query in a web browser on a client computing device, the method comprising:

receiving, by the web browser, a search query input into a web-page search field provided by a displayed web page;

recognizing, by a toolbar of the web browser, that the displayed web page is associated with a search engine, the toolbar including a toolbar search field separate from the web-page search field;

communicating a request to send a refined search query when the search query is sent to the search engine;

receiving the refined search query; and

in the web browser, displaying search results for the search query at the same time as displaying the refined search query in the toolbar search field.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user indication to search for the refined search query; and

requesting a search of the refined search query from a different search engine that is different from the search engine.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the toolbar search field comprises a portion of the toolbar that is included within the browser window and that does not overlap the displayed web page.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein recognizing, by the toolbar, that the displayed web page is associated with a search engine further comprises:

comparing a URL of the displayed web page with a list of URLs identified as search engines; and

correlating the URL of the displayed web page to at least one of the list of URLS identified as search engines.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the list of URLs is stored on the client computing device in an expression file.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, on a server, the request to send the refined search queries based on the search query;

accessing one or more tables populated with query terms correlated to refined query terms;

from the refined query terms, selecting the at least one refined search query; and

transmitting the at least one refined search query.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the refined search query is selected using confidence scores associated with each of the refined query terms.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein each confidence score is based on at least one member of a group comprising:

a related-search clickthrough rate (CTR) indicating the frequency users have historically opted to search for at least one of the refined query terms;

a follow-up CTR indicating the frequency users have historically clicked a result stemming from a search of the at least one of the refined query terms;

a search engine switching rate; and

a reformulation rate.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising determining a vertical associated with the search query.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the refined search query suggests a different vertical to search than a vertical associated with the search query.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the vertical and the different vertical indicate a vertical search engine that searches for particular types of online content.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, further comprising:

receiving search results for the refined search query from the different search engine; and

displaying the search results for the refined search query in an impression of the different search engine.

13. One or more computer-storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method for displaying a refined search query in a web browser, the method comprising:

receiving a search query in a web-page search field displayed in the web browser, which includes a toolbar having a toolbar search field separate from the web-page search field;

recognizing that a web page providing the web-page search field is associated with a search engine;

communicating a request to send a refined search query when the search query is sent to the search engine;

receiving the refined search query and search results deemed relevant to the search query; and

displaying the search results in a content-viewing portion of the web browser simultaneous with the refined search query, which is displayed in the toolbar search field.

14. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, further comprising:

while displaying the search results for the search query, receiving an indication to search for the refined search query;

querying a second search engine for the refined search query, wherein the second search engine is different than the search engine; and

displaying results for the refined search query in a results page associated with the different search engine.

15. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, further comprising:

determining a vertical for the search query; and

displaying a suggestion of a different vertical for running either the search query or the refined search query.

16. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein recognizing the web page is associated with a search engine further comprises identifying a URL of the web page with an entry in a table associated with the toolbar.

17. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein recognizing the web page is associated with a search engine further comprises analyzing content of the web page.

18. One or more computer-storage media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method for displaying a refined search query in a web browser on a client computing device, the method comprising:

receiving a search query input into a web-page search field that is displayed by the web browser in a displayed web page;

recognizing, by a toolbar of the web browser, that the displayed web page is associated with a first search engine, the toolbar including a toolbar search field that is separate from the web-page search field and that is associated with a second search engine different from the first search engine;

communicating a request to send a refined search query when the search query is sent to the first search engine;

receiving the refined search query, which is recommended to be submitted to the second search engine, and search results deemed relevant by the first search engine to the search query; and

displaying the search results in a content-viewing portion of the web browser simultaneous with the refined search query, which is displayed in the toolbar search field.

19. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein recognizing, by the toolbar of the browser, comprises:

accessing an expression file maintained by the web browser by to match a webpage address of the web page to the first search engine.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the refined search query includes a recommendation to search in a second vertical that is different from a first vertical to which the search query was directed.