Dispersing search engine results by using page category information

• US 7,428,530 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2004
• Issued: 09/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shakib, Darren A., Hullender, Gregory N., Hamilton, Nicole A., Ramarathnam, Bama
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Leslie
• Application Number:
  US10/883,460
• Publication Number:
  US 20060004717A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,545 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/3, 707/6, 707/7, 707/104.1, 709/203, 709/219
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

Systems and methods for dispersing search engine results by category. A search engine application queries a searchable index of document data associated with a plurality of electronic documents in response to a search request to identify one or more electronic documents having document data matching data included in the search request. The search engine application disperses identified electronic documents according to category data included in the document data for display to a user.

Claims

1. A method of generating search results comprising:

receiving a search request from a user, said search request including one or more terms;

querying a searchable central data index as a function of the received search request to identify electronic documents for relevance with respect to the one or more terms in the search request, said index containing document data associated with a plurality of electronic documents, said document data specifying one or more categories associated with each of the electronic documents and including a ranking value associated with each of the electronic documents relative to the categories, said ranking value being stored in the index and indicating a relevance of a particular electronic document to a particular category, said index organizing said document data by dispersing said document data belonging to various categories associated with each of the electronic documents in said index;

assigning a confidence level to each of the one or more specified categories;

in response to the querying, generating search results identifying electronic documents based on relevance to the one or more terms in the search request to be displayed on a single result page, wherein the generated search results include relevant electronic documents within the various categories from the index that correspond to the one or more terms in the search request based on the ranking value associated with each of the electronic documents and the confidence level of the one or more corresponding categories;

dispersing the generated search results according to the specified one or more categories associated with each of the electronic documents identified in the search results;

sorting the dispersed search results of said querying according to the one or more categories as a function of the ranking value associated with each of the identified electronic documents; and

displaying the sorted results to the user such that one or more of the identified electronic documents in different categories are displayed to the user on the single result page.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying includes displaying a predetermined number of identified electronic documents in each of the different categories as a function of the ranking values.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein displaying includes displaying the sorted results as a function of both a total number of different categories and the ranking value for each of the identified electronic documents in each of the different categories.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the displaying includes displaying the sorted results in groups, each group corresponding to a particular category, and each group listing a description of the identified electronic documents in the particular category in a descending order based on the ranking value associated with each of the identified electronic documents in the particular category.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the electronic documents comprises one or more of the following:

a web page and a multimedia file.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein querying the searchable index farther includes querying a third party data source to retrieve advertising data related to the different categories, and wherein displaying the sorted results further includes displaying the retrieved advertising data relative to the different categories of the identified electronic documents.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising using one or more computer storage media having stored thereon a searchable data structure in conjunction with said receiving, said querying, said assigning, said generating, said dispersing, said sorting and said displaying, said data structure comprising:

a first field for storing data representing a central search engine index term associated with an electronic document located on a network, said index term being included in the electronic document;

a second field for storing data representing a document category corresponding to the electronic document, said stored data in the second field including a document confidence level relating to the document category;

a third field for storing data representing a location corresponding to the electronic document on the network; and

wherein the document data included in the second field is indexed according to the first field such that one or more document categories are associated with the index term, said data structure dispersing electronic documents belonging to various document categories, and wherein the document data included in the third field is indexed according to the second field such that one or more locations of the electronic documents are associated with each of the one or more document categories, and

wherein, in response to a query in a search request, the stored data in the third field representing the electronic document is displayed on a single result page based on a combined relevance to the query in the search request, the stored data representing the central search engine index term, and the document confidence level of the document category associated with the index.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the data structure further includes a fourth field representing a document ranking value associated with the electronic document, said document ranking value indicating a relevance of a particular electronic document to a particular document category, and wherein document data included in the fourth field is indexed according to the third field such that one or more ratings are associated with each electronic document the associated with the particular document category.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein an application is configured to receive a search request to search the index to determine if the index term stored in the first field matches query data specified in the received search request, wherein, if the index term stored in the first field matches the query data, the application is further configured to identify the corresponding document category specified in the second field and to identify the corresponding document location stored in the third field, and wherein the application provides search results including identified document locations to the user, and wherein said search results are grouped by category according to the corresponding document category specified in the second field associated with the electronic document identified in the search results.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the data structure further includes a fifth field representing a summary description associated with the known electronic document, and wherein the grouped search results provided to the user by the application include the summary description associated with the electronic document.

23. The method of claim 19, wherein the document data further includes one or more of the following:

data in hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) header, meta tag, extensible markup language (XML) data, and resource description framework (RDF) data.

7. A computer storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions for generating search results, comprising:

a search form component for receiving a search request from a user;

a search engine component for querying a searchable central data index as a function of the received search request to identify electronic documents for relevance with respect to the search request and for sorting the results of said querying, said index containing document data associated with a plurality of electronic documents, said document data specifying one or more categories associated with each of the electronic documents, said index organizing said document data by dispersing said document data belonging to various categories associated with each of the electronic documents in said index, wherein the search engine component assigns a confidence level to each of the one or more specified categories;

said results being dispersed and sorted as a function of the one or more categories associated with the identified electronic documents, said specified one or more categories associated with the dispersed and sorted results being determined by the electronic documents identified in the search results, wherein the generated search results include relevant electronic documents within the various categories from the index that correspond to the one or more terms in the search request based on the ranking value associated with each of the electronic documents and the confidence level of the one or more corresponding categories; and

a user interface component for displaying the sorted results to the user such that one or more of the identified electronic documents in different categories are displayed to the user on a single page, wherein the user interface component displays to the user the search results according to one of the following;

the categories of the generated search results, top-level categories of the categories of the generated search results, the subcategories of the categories of the generated search results, selectively narrow down the search results, or filter out categories such that search results within categories of interest to shown to the user.

8. The computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein the document data includes a ranking value associated with each of the electronic documents relative to the one or more categories, said ranking value being stored in the index and indicating a relevance of a particular electronic document to a particular category, and wherein the user interface component is configured to display a predetermined number of identified electronic documents in each of the different categories as a function of the ranking values.

9. The computer storage medium of claim 8, wherein the user interface component is further configured to display the sorted results as a function of both a total number of different categories and the ranking value for each of the identified electronic documents in each of the different categories.

10. The computer storage medium of claim 8, wherein the user interface component is further configured to display the sorted results in groups, each group corresponding to a particular category, and each group listing a description of the identified electronic documents in the particular category in a descending order based on the ranking value associated with each of the identified electronic documents in the particular category.

11. The computer storage medium of claim 7, wherein the search engine component is further configured to query a third party data source to retrieve advertising data related to the different categories, and wherein the user interface component is further configured to display the retrieved advertising data relative to the different categories of the identified electronic documents.

12. A system for generating search results in response to a search request received from a user, said user generating the search request via a client, said system comprising:

a first server for receiving the search request from the user via the client, said first server being coupled to the client via a communication network;

an index containing document data associated with a plurality of electronic documents, said document data specifying one or more categories associated with each of the electronic documents, said index organizing said document data by dispersing said document data belonging to various categories associated with each of the electronic documents in said index;

wherein said first server assigns a confidence level to each of the one or more specified categories, and

wherein said first server is configured to query the index as a function of the received search request to identify electronic documents for relevance with respect to the search request and to sort the results of said query, said results being dispersed according to the specified one or more categories, wherein the specified one or more categories being determined by the electronic documents identified in the results, said results being sorted as a function of the one or more categories associated with the identified electronic documents for displaying to the user at the client such that one or more of the identified electronic documents in different categories are displayed to the user on a single page, wherein the generated search results include relevant electronic documents within the various categories from the index that correspond to the one or more terms in the search request based on the ranking value associated with each of the electronic documents and the confidence level of the one or more corresponding categories.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the document data includes a ranking value associated with each of the electronic documents relative to the one or more categories, said ranking value being stored in the index and indicating a relevance of a particular electronic document to a particular category, and wherein a predetermined number of identified electronic documents in each of the different categories are displayed as a function of the ranking values.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the sorted results are displayed as a function of both a total number of different categories and the ranking value for each of the identified electronic documents in each of the different categories.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the sorted results are displayed in groups, each group corresponding to a particular category, and each group listing a description of the identified electronic documents in the particular category in a descending order based on the ranking value associated with each of the identified electronic documents in the particular category.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the first server is configured to provide a web form to the client for receiving the search request from the user.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the first server is further configured to query a third party data source to retrieve advertising data related to the different categories, and wherein the retrieved advertising data is displayed relative to the different categories of the identified electronic documents.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the document data included in the index is partitioned and transferred to a plurality of sub-indexes for storage, each of said plurality of sub-indexes being maintained on a plurality of affiliate servers, and wherein the first server is responsive to the received search request to query at least one of the said plurality of sub-indexes to identify one or more electronic documents within different categories.