QUERY SUGGESTION FOR E-COMMERCE SITES

• US 20150142827A1
• Filed: 01/27/2015
• Published: 05/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Hasan, Mohammad Al, Parikh, Nishith, Singh, Gyanit, Sundaresan, Neelakantan, Johnson, Brian Scott, Khurana, Udayan
• Granted Patent: US 9,323,811 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/748
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3325 Reformulation based on results of preceding query
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy

Abstract

Query suggestions are provided using a query log including a number of user sessions that comprise training data. The training data includes a sequence of a plurality of sets of queries, some of the sets of queries including query transitions followed by a purchase related event. From a cleaned and normalized query log stationary scores and transition scores of at least some of the plurality of sets are generated. A set of query suggestions is built and similarity scores are computed for at least some of the set of query suggestions to determine whether individual ones of the at least some of the set of query suggestions meet a predetermined assurance level. Those that meet the assurance level are included as elements of the set of query suggestions. The set of query suggestions is mixed and ranked according to a user behavior that is sought to be influenced.

Claims

1. A method for providing query suggestions for a user comprising:

receiving a query log of client machine sessions on a publication system, at least one session comprising a plurality of queries, query transitions and a purchase-related event;

generating by at least one computer processor transition scores comprising scores for ordered pairs of the plurality of queries based on transition from a query of an ordered pair to the purchase-related event;

building a set of query suggestions from the transition scores by a score accumulation process;

computing similarity scores for the set of query suggestions to determine whether a similarity score for at least one member of the set of query suggestions meets a threshold; and

providing to a client machine a list of query suggestions including query suggestions that meet the threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the transition scores comprise a popularity score and a purchase efficiency score and the score accumulation process comprises accumulating the popularity score and the purchase efficiency score.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising mixing and ranking the set of query suggestions in accordance with the user behavior that is to be influenced.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the mixing comprises one of equal mixing and natural mixing.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the ranking comprises using a first weighting for the popularity score and a second weighting for the purchase efficiency score.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising cleaning and normalizing the query suggestions.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the cleaning comprises noise removal and the normalizing comprises dividing the transition scores by the number of users that practice the transition.

8. One or more computer-readable hardware storage device having embedded therein a set of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors of a computer, causes the computer to execute operations comprising:

receiving a query log of client machine sessions on a publication system, at least one session comprising a plurality of queries, query transitions and a purchase related event;

generating by at least one computer processor transition scores comprising scores for ordered pairs of the plurality of queries based on transition from a query of an ordered pair to the purchase-related event;

building a set of query suggestions from the transition scores by a score accumulation process;

computing similarity scores for the set of query suggestions to determine whether a similarity score for at least one member of the set of query suggestions meets a threshold; and

providing to a client machine a list of query suggestions including query suggestions that meet the threshold.

9. The one or more hardware storage device of claim 8 wherein the transition scores comprise a popularity score and a purchase efficiency score and the score accumulation process comprises accumulating the popularity score and the purchase efficiency score.

10. The one or more hardware storage device of claim 8, the operations further comprising mixing and ranking the set of query suggestions in accordance with the user behavior that is to be influenced.

11. The one or more hardware storage device of claim 10 wherein the mixing comprises one of equal mixing and natural mixing.

12. The one or more hardware storage device of claim 10 wherein the ranking comprises using a first weighting for the popularity score and a second weighting for the purchase efficiency score.

13. The one or more hardware storage device of claim 8, the operations further comprising cleaning and normalizing the query suggestions.

14. The one or more hardware storage device of claim 13 wherein the cleaning comprises noise removal [0064] and the normalizing comprises dividing the transition scores by the number of users that practice the transition.

15. A system comprising one or more hardware processors configured to include:

a logging module to receive a query log of client machine sessions on a publication system, the query log comprising high frequency queries and low frequency queries, at least one session comprising a plurality of queries, query transitions and a purchase-related event;

a scoring module to generate transition scores comprising scores for ordered pairs of the plurality of queries based on transition from a query of an ordered pair to the purchase-related event, the transition scores comprising a popularity score;

a query suggestion build module to build a set of query suggestions from the transition scores by a score accumulation process;

a similarity module to compute similarity scores for the set of query suggestions to determine whether a similarity score for at least one member of the set of query suggestions meets a threshold; and

an output provider module for providing to a client machine a list of query suggestions for low frequency queries that do not meet a predetermined popularity score but do meet the threshold.

16. The system of claim 15, the one or more hardware processors further configured to include a suggestion mixing module to mix, and a ranking module to rank, the set of query suggestions in accordance with the user behavior that is to be influenced.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the mixing module performs one of equal mixing and natural mixing.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the transition scores further comprise a purchase efficiency score, and the ranking module uses a first weighting for the popularity score and a second weighting for the purchase efficiency score.

19. The system of claim 15, the one or more hardware processors further configured to include a cleaning module to clean the query suggestions and a normalizing module to normalize the query suggestions.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the cleaning comprises noise removal and the normalizing comprises dividing the transition scores by the number of users that practice the transition.