Category suggestions relating to a search

• US 7,523,099 B1
• Filed: 12/30/2004
• Issued: 04/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Egnor, Daniel, Reid, Elizabeth Hamon
• Primary Examiner(s): Le; Uyen T.
• Application Number:
  US11/024,975
• Time in Patent Office: 1,573 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/3, 707/6, 707/7
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/353 into predefined classes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

A system determines categories for business listings identified in a list of search results and assigns scores to the categories. The system presents one or more high scoring ones of the categories as one or more category suggestions relating to the list of search results.

Claims

1. A method performed by a server device, comprising:

receiving, by a processor of the server device and from a client device, a search query associated with a geographic area;

performing, by the processor, a search based on the search query to identify a set of documents that are associated with businesses located in or near the geographic area;

scoring, by the processor, the documents in the set of documents;

identifying, by the processor, categories for documents in the set of documents;

assigning, by the processor, scores to the categories, based on the scores of corresponding documents in the set of documents, by;

assigning initial scores to the categories based on the scores of corresponding ones of the documents, and

combining one or more of the initial scores assigned to one of the categories to generate the score for the one of the categories; and

providing, by the processor and to the client device, information associated with one or more of the categories, as one or more category suggestions, based on the assigned scores.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sorting the documents based on their scores; and

forming the sorted documents into a list of search results.

3. The method of claim 1, where determining categories for documents in the set of documents comprises looking up the categories in a database.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting information associated with the set of documents along with the information associated with the one or more category suggestions.

5. The method of claim 1, where a naming scheme associated with the one or more category suggestions corresponds to a naming scheme associated with a highest scoring one of the categories.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving selection of one of the one or more category suggestions; and

refining the search based on the selected one of the one or more category suggestions.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving selection of one of the one or more category suggestions; and

replacing the documents from the search with documents associated with the selected one of the one or more category suggestions.

8. A method performed by a device, comprising:

identifying, by the device, categories for business listings identified in a list of search results;

assigning, by the device, scores to the categories by;

assigning initial scores to the categories based on scores of corresponding ones of the business listings, and

combining one or more of the initial scores assigned to one of the categories to generate the score for the one of the categories; and

presenting, by the device, information associated with one or more high scoring ones of the categories as one or more category suggestions relating to the list of search results.

9. The method of claim 8, where a naming scheme used to present the one or more category suggestions corresponds to a naming scheme associated with a highest scoring one of the categories.

10. A method performed by a server device, comprising:

performing, by a processor of the server device, a search based on a search query to identify a group of documents that are associated with businesses located in a particular geographic area;

assigning, by the processor, scores to the documents;

sorting, by the processor, the documents based on the scores of the documents;

forming, by the processor, the sorted documents into a list of search results;

identifying, by the processor, categories associated with documents in the group of documents, where each of the categories corresponds to one of the documents;

assigning, by the processor, scores to the categories based on positions of the corresponding documents in the list of search results;

combining, by the processor, the scores of each of the categories to determine a final score for each of the categories;

presenting, by the processor, the list of search results; and

presenting, by the processor, information associated with one of the categories, as a category suggestion, based on the final score for the one of the categories.

11. The method of claim 10, where presenting the information associated with one of the categories includes:

identifying one of the categories that has a highest final score among the final scores of the categories, and

presenting information associated with the one of the categories that has the highest assigned score as the category suggestion.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving selection of the category suggestion; and

refining the search query based on the selected category suggestion.

13. A computer-readable memory device that stores computer-executable instructions, comprising:

one or more instructions for performing a search based on a search query to identify a set of business listings associated with a geographic area;

one or more instructions for identifying categories for business listings in the set of business listings;

one or more instructions for assigning scores to the categories, where the one or more instructions for assigning the scores to the categories includes;

one or more instructions for counting a number of occurrences of one of the categories corresponding to one of the business listings in the set of business listings, and

one or more instructions for assigning a score to the one of the categories based on the number of occurrences of the one of the categories; and

one or more instructions for providing information associated with one or more of the categories, as one or more category suggestions, based on the assigned scores.

14. The computer-readable memory device of claim 13, where a naming scheme used to provide the one or more category suggestions corresponds to a naming scheme associated with a highest scoring one of the categories.

15. A search system implemented within one or more devices, comprising:

a search engine to;

receive a search query associated with a geographic area,

identify a group of documents that are associated with locations in or near the geographic area based on the search query, and

score documents in the group of documents; and

a category suggestion engine to;

identify categories associated with the documents in the group of documents,

score the categories by;

assigning initial scores to the categories based on the scores of corresponding ones of the documents, and

combining one or more of the initial scores assigned to one of the categories to generate the score for the one of the categories, and

present information associated with one or more highest scoring ones of the categories as one or more category suggestions.

16. The system of claim 15, where the search engine is further configured to:

sort the documents based on the scores, and

form the sorted documents into a list of search results.

17. The system of claim 15, where, when identifying categories associated with documents in the group of documents, the category suggestion engine is configured to identify one or more categories for each document in a subset of the documents in the group of documents.

18. The system of claim 15, where, when identifying categories associated with documents in the group of documents, the category suggestion engine is configured to look up the categories in a database.

19. The system of claim 15, where, when presenting information associated with the one or more highest scoring ones of the categories as one or more category suggestions, the category suggestion engine is configured to also present information associated with the group of documents.

20. The system of claim 15, where a naming scheme associated with the one or more category suggestions corresponds to a naming scheme associated with a highest scoring one of the categories.

21. The method of claim 15, where, when scoring the documents, the search engine is configured to score the documents based on a match between the search query and contents of the documents.

22. One or more devices, comprising:

means for receiving a search query;

means for performing a search to identify business listings based on the search query;

means for identifying categories for at least some of the business listings;

means for assigning scores to the categories, where the means for assigning the scores includes;

means for counting a number of occurrences of each of the categories, and

means for assigning scores to the categories based on the number of occurrences of the categories; and

means for providing information associated with one or more of the categories, as one or more category suggestions relating to the search, based on the assigned scores.

23. The one or more devices of claim 22, where a naming scheme used to provide the one or more category suggestions corresponds to a naming scheme associated with a highest scoring one of the categories.