System and method facilitating page indexing employing reference information

• US 7,502,773 B1
• Filed: 12/31/2003
• Issued: 03/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shakib, Darren A., Birney, Keith A.
• Primary Examiner(s): LEWIS, CHERYL RENEA
• Application Number:
  US10/749,985
• Time in Patent Office: 1,896 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 3, 707/10, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/2, 707/200, 707/202, 709/201, 715/205, 715/208, 715/234
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing

Abstract

A system and method facilitating page indexing employing reference information (e.g., anchor text) is provided. In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a page index system having a page data store and a crawler component is provided. The page data store stores reference information associated with pages. The crawler component receives a page, retrieves reference information associated with the page from the page data store, and, provides the page and associated reference information, for example, to an index building system. The system can thus facilitate indexing of pages based, at least in part, upon reference information (e.g., anchor text) associated with the pages.

Claims

1. Computer-readable instructions embodied on a computer-readable storage medium that when executed on one or more processors implement a page index system, the system comprising:

a page data store that stores reference information associated with a page, the reference information is obtained from at least one other page and is accumulated incrementally from each other page as each other page is crawled, the reference information comprising descriptive information that is adjacent to anchor text associated with a referencing uniform resource locator that references the page; and

a crawler component that receives the page, retrieves the reference information associated with the page from the page data store, and provides the page and the reference information to at least an index building component;

wherein failure to receive a requested page after a first predetermined period of time causes the URL for the page to be removed from the page data store after a second predetermined period of time.

2. A web crawler employing the system of claim 1.

3. The system of claim 1, the reference information further comprising anchor text.

4. The system of claim 1, the reference information comprising at least one of a sentence fragment, a sentence or a paragraph, or a combination thereof, adjacent to the anchor text.

5. An Internet search engine employing the page and the reference information provided by the system of claim 1.

6. The system of claim 1, the page data store stores a uniform resource locator that identifies the page, the uniform resource locator further employed to identify the reference information associated with the page.

7. A crawler embodied on a computer-readable storage medium comprising:

an input component that receives one or more pages;

a parser component that parses the one or more pages for another page referenced on the one or more pages, and accumulatively stores reference information associated with the another page in a page data store, the reference information comprising descriptive information that is in proximity to anchor text associated with a referencing uniform resource locator that references the another page, wherein failure to receive the one or more page after a first predetermined period of time causes the URL for the page to be removed from the page data store after a second period of time;

a retrieval component that receives the another page and retrieves the reference information associated with the another page from the page data store; and

an output component that provides an output, comprising the another page merged with the reference information associated with the another page, to an index building system.

8. A page indexing system comprising the crawler of claim 7.

9. The page indexing system of claim 8 further comprising the page data store.

10. The system of claim 7, the page data store stores a uniform resource locator that identifies a particular page, the uniform resource locator further employed to identify the reference information associated with the particular page.

11. The crawler of claim 7, the reference information further comprising anchor text.

12. The crawler of claim 7, the reference information comprising at least one of a sentence fragment, a sentence or a paragraph, or a combination thereof, in proximity to the anchor text.

13. A computer implemented method facilitating page indexing comprising:

retrieving reference information associated with a page from at least one other page, the reference information comprising descriptive information that is in proximity to anchor text associated with a referencing uniform resource locator that references the page;

storing the reference information associated with the page in a data store;

incrementally accumulating the reference information from each other page as each other page is crawled;

merging the page with the reference information;

providing an output comprising the page merged with the reference information associated with the page to at least an index building system; and

deleting the information for a page from the data store when the page cannot be retrieved for a predetermined period of time.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising at least one of the following:

receiving a request for retrieving the page;

retrieving the page;

or

storing reference information associated with a uniform resource locator on the page.

15. The method of claim 13, retrieval of the reference information associated with the page being based, at least in part, upon a uniform resource locator identifying the page.

16. One or more computer readable storage media having stored thereon computer executable instructions for carrying out the method of claim 13.

17. One or more computer readable storage media storing computer executable components of a crawler comprising:

an input component that receives one or more pages;

a parser component that parses the one or more pages for another page referenced on the one or more pages, incrementally accumulates reference information associated with the another page from each of the one or more pages when crawled, and stores such reference information in a page data store, the reference information comprising descriptive information that is in proximity to anchor text associated with a referencing uniform resource locator that references the another page, wherein failure to receive the one or more pages after a first predetermined period of time causes the URL for the one or more pages to be removed from the page data store after a second period of time;

a retrieval component that receives the another page and retrieves the reference information associated with the another page from the page data store; and

an output component that provides an output, comprising the another page merged with the reference information associated with the another page, to at least an index building system.

18. The storage media of claim 17, the page data store storing a uniform resource locator that identifies the another page, the uniform resource locator further being employed to identify the reference information associated with the another page.

19. The storage media of claim 17, the reference information further comprising anchor text.

20. The storage media of claim 17, the reference information comprising at least one of a sentence fragment, a sentence or a paragraph, or a combination thereof, in proximity to the anchor text.

21. A page index system embodied on a computer-readable storage medium, comprising:

means for retrieving reference information associated with a page from at least one other page;

means for incrementally accumulating the reference information from each other page as each other page is crawled;

means for storing the reference information in a data store, the reference information comprising descriptive information that is adjacent to anchor text associated with a uniform referencing locator that references the page;

means for receiving the page;

means for retrieving the reference information associated with the page from means for storing the reference information;

means for providing an output to at least an index building system, the output comprising the page merged with the reference information associated with the page; and

means for removing the page from the data store when the page cannot be received after a predetermined period of time.

22. The system of claim 21, the means for storing the reference information further storing a uniform resource locator that identifies the page, the uniform resource locator further being employed to identify the reference information associated with the page.

23. The system of claim 21, the reference information further comprising anchor text.

24. The system of claim 21, the reference information comprising at least one of a sentence fragment, a sentence or a paragraph, or a combination thereof, adjacent to a referencing uniform resource locator.