Determining a rating for a collection of documents

• US 7,359,899 B2
• Filed: 05/16/2005
• Issued: 04/15/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Packer, Alan J., Larason, John Todd
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong; Cam Y T
• Application Number:
  US11/130,595
• Publication Number:
  US 20050278363A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,065 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

On one or more data processing systems, a collection rating is determined for a rating scale for contents of a document collection. A link rating is determined for the rating scale for contents linked to or linked by contents of the document collection. The collection rating for the rating scale for contents of the document collection is then modified, based on the determined link rating for the rating scale for contents linked to or linked by contents of the document collection.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for determining a rating for a first collection of documents, the method comprising:

determining a first collection rating according to a first rating scale, said first collection rating relating to a desirability of content of the documents of the collection;

determining a first link rating according to said first rating scale, said first link rating relating to a desirability of content of another document, said content of another document linked with the content of a collection document;

modifying said first collection rating based on said determined first link rating;

wherein said determining of a first collection rating comprises determining said first collection rating based on document ratings of a first subset of documents of the first collection of documents, and sizes of the documents of the first subset of documents of first document collection; and

wherein said determining of the first collection rating comprises computing the first collection rating according to said rating scale as follows;

$\mathrm{CR}=\frac{\underset{i.j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br><br><br>r_i<br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}{\underset{i.j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br><br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}$

where CR is collection rating for said rating scale;

r_i is a weight applied for document rating group i;

w_i is a weight applied for document size group j;

N_ij is a number of pages in a collection with document rating i and having group sizes j for said rating scale.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said first subset of documents of said first document collection consists of first textual documents of said first document collection.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining of a first link rating comprises determining at least a second collection rating relating to the desirability of the contents of at least a second document collection with documents linked with documents of said first document collection, and determining said first link rating based on said determined at least a second collection rating.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said modifying of the first collection rating comprises replacing the determined first collection rating with said determined first link rating.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said modifying of the first collection rating comprises adding said determined first link rating to the determined first collection rating or subtracting said determined first link rating from the determined first collection rating.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said first document collection is a web site, and said contents of said first document collection are web pages.

7. A computer-implemented method for determining a rating for a collection of documents, the method comprising:

determining document ratings according to a rating scale for a subset of documents of the document collection;

determining document sizes of the documents of said subset;

determining collection rating according to said rating scale, said collection rating being based on said determined document ratings of subset of documents and normalized by said determined document sizes of said subset of documents;

said determining of the collection rating comprises further subdividing said subset of documents into a plurality of groups in accordance with their determined document sizes, and applying a weight to a document rating for each document of the subset in accordance to document'"'"'s size group classification; and

said determining of the collection rating comprises computing the collection rating according to said rating scale as follows;

$\mathrm{CR}=\frac{\underset{i,j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br><br><br>r_i<br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}{\underset{i,j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br><br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}$

where CR is the collection rating for said rating scale;

r_i is a weight applied for document rating group i;

w_i is a weight applied for document size group j;

N_ij is a number of pages in a collection with document rating i and having group sizes j for said rating scale.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said determining of the collection rating comprises further subdividing said subset of documents into a plurality of groups in accordance with their determined ratings according to said rating scale, and applying a weight to the document rating determined for said rating scale for each document of the subset in accordance to the document'"'"'s rate group classification.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein said first collection of documents are web pages of a web site, and said first subset of documents are textual documents of said web site.

10. A computer-implemented apparatus for determining a rating for a collection of documents, said apparatus comprising:

storage medium having stored therein a plurality of programming instructions designed to enable said apparatus to

determine a first collection rating according to a first rating scale, said first collection rating relating to a desirability of content of the documents of the collection,

determine a first link rating according to said first rating scale, said first link rating relating to a desirability of content of another document, said content of another document linked with the content of a collection document, and

modify said first collection rating based on said determined first link rating; and

at least one processor coupled to the storage medium to execute the programming instructions;

wherein said determining of the collection rating comprises subdividing a subset of documents into a plurality of groups in accordance with their document sizes, and applying a weight to a document rating for each document of the subset in accordance to document'"'"'s size group classification; and

said determining of the first collection rating comprises computing the first collection rating according to said rating scale as follows;

$\mathrm{CR}=\frac{\underset{i.j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br><br><br>r_i<br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}{\underset{i.j}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br><br><br>w_j<br><br>\log <br><br>\left(N_{\mathrm{ij}}+1\right)}$

where CR is collection rating for said rating scale;

r_i is a weight applied for document rating group i;

w_i is a weight applied for document size group j;

N_ij is a number of pages in a collection with document rating i and having group sizes j for said rating scale.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said determining of a first collection rating by determining said first collection rating based on document ratings of a first subset of documents of said first collection of documents, and sizes of the documents of the first subset of documents of the first document collection.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein said first subset of documents of said first document collection consists of first textual documents of said first document collection.

13. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said determining of a first link rating by determining at least a second collection rating relating to the desirability of the contents of at least a second document collection with documents linked with documents of said first document collection, and determining said first link rating based on said determined at least a second collection rating.

14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said modifying of the first collection rating by replacing the determined first collection rating with said determined first link rating.

15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said programming instructions are designed to enable the apparatus to perform said modifying of the first collection rating by adding said determined first link rating to the determined first collection rating or subtracting said determined first link rating from the determined first collection rating.