GRAPH-BASED SEARCH QUERIES USING WEB CONTENT METADATA

• US 20130268533A1
• Filed: 06/05/2012
• Published: 10/10/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Komarov, Andrey
• Granted Patent: US 9,411,890 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/740
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2228 Indexing structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/953 Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating search query metadata for a graph search query for use in selecting web pages relevant to the graph search query. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a graph search query specifying user-selected graph search elements; generating graph search query metadata representing the graph search elements of the graph search query and relationships of the graph search elements; comparing the graph search query metadata to content metadata sets, wherein each content metadata set represents content elements of a content item presented on a respective web resource and relationships of the content elements; determining similarity scores between the content metadata sets and the graph search query metadata based on the comparison; and selecting web resources on which the content items are presented based on the similarity scores of the respective content metadata sets.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

receiving a graph search query specifying user-selected graph search elements, each graph search element corresponding to one of a graph node or graph edge connecting graph nodes;

generating graph search query metadata representing the graph search elements of the graph search query and relationships of the graph search elements of the graph search query;

comparing the graph search query metadata to content metadata sets, wherein each content metadata set represents content elements of a content item presented on a respective web resource and relationships of the content elements;

determining similarity scores between the content metadata sets and the graph search query metadata based on the comparison; and

selecting one or more of the web resources on which the content items are presented based at least in part on the similarity scores of the respective content metadata sets.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing user interface data to a client device, wherein the user interface data causes the client device to present an interactive user interface tool that allows a user of the client device to select graph search elements to generate a graph search query.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving category data specifying a subject matter category of a search query; and

wherein providing user interface data to a client device comprises;

selecting a proper subset of graph search elements from a set of graph search elements based on the category data, wherein the user interface data causes the client device to present the interactive user interface tool that allows the user of the client device to select from among graph search elements in the subset of graph search elements.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining similarity scores between the content metadata sets and the graph search query metadata comprises:

determining a distance measure between the graph search query metadata and at least one of the content metadata sets based on a distance function.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

selecting the distance function based on the user-selected graph search elements.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing the content metadata sets from the respective web resources;

storing the content metadata sets in a data store; and

wherein comparing the graph search query metadata to content metadata sets comprises accessing one or more of the content metadata sets stored in the data store.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the content metadata sets are embedded in the respective web resources.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, with the graph search query, a text search query specifying one or more search terms; and

wherein selecting one or more of the web resources comprises;

selecting the one or more of the web resources based on the similarity scores and relevancy data specifying a relevancy between the one or more search terms and content on the one or more of the web resources.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the content item is a graphical object and the content elements are graph nodes and graph edges of the graphical object.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a content metadata set based on a data model of a web resource on which the corresponding content item is presented.

11. A system comprising:

one or more data processing apparatuses; and

a data storage apparatus encoded with instructions that when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to perform operations comprising;

receiving a graph search query specifying user-selected graph search elements, each graph search element corresponding to one of a graph node or graph edge connecting graph nodes;

generating graph search query metadata representing the graph search elements of the graph search query and relationships of the graph search elements of the graph search query;

comparing the graph search query metadata to content metadata sets, wherein each content metadata set represents content elements of a content item presented on a respective web resource and relationships of the content elements;

determining similarity scores between the content metadata sets and the graph search query metadata based on the comparison; and

selecting one or more of the web resources on which the content items are presented based at least in part on the similarity scores of the respective content metadata sets.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses, cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to further perform operations comprising:

providing user interface data to a client device, wherein the user interface data causes the client device to present an interactive user interface tool that allows a user of the client device to select graph search elements to generate a graph search query.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses, cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to further perform operations comprising:

receiving category data specifying a subject matter category of a search query; and

wherein providing user interface data to a client device comprises;

selecting a proper subset of graph search elements from a set of graph search elements based on the category data, wherein the user interface data causes the client device to present the interactive user interface tool that allows the user of the client device to select from among graph search elements in the subset of graph search elements.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein determining similarity scores between the content metadata sets and the graph search query metadata comprises:

determining a distance measure between the graph search query metadata and at least one of the content metadata sets based on a distance function.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses, cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to further perform operations comprising:

selecting the distance function based on the user-selected graph search elements.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses, cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to further perform operations comprising:

accessing the content metadata sets from the respective web resources;

storing the content metadata sets in a data store; and

wherein comparing the graph search query metadata to content metadata sets comprises accessing one or more of the content metadata sets stored in the data store.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the content metadata sets are embedded in the respective web resources.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses, cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to further perform operations comprising:

receiving, with the graph search query, a text search query specifying one or more search terms; and

wherein selecting one or more of the web resources comprises;

selecting the one or more of the web resources based on the similarity scores and relevancy data specifying a relevancy between the one or more search terms and content on the one or more of the web resources.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more data processing apparatuses, cause the one or more data processing apparatuses to further perform operations comprising:

generating a content metadata set based on a data model of a web resource on which the corresponding content item is presented.

20. A computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by one or more data processors, causes the one or more processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a graph search query specifying user-selected graph search elements, each graph search element corresponding to one of a graph node or graph edge connecting graph nodes;

generating graph search query metadata representing the graph search elements of the graph search query and relationships of the graph search elements of the graph search query;

comparing the graph search query metadata to content metadata sets, wherein each content metadata set represents content elements of a content item presented on a respective web resource and relationships of the content elements;

determining similarity scores between the content metadata sets and the graph search query metadata based on the comparison; and

selecting one or more of the web resources on which the content items are presented based at least in part on the similarity scores of the respective content metadata sets.