Combined title prefix and full-word content searching

• US 7,617,197 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2005
• Issued: 11/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/19/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Dingle, Adam, Stanton, Daisy, Raub, Susannah
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo; Tim T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Morrison; Jay A
• Application Number:
  US11/207,581
• Publication Number:
  US 20070043714A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,544 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• 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 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting

Abstract

A system for searching an object environment includes harvesting and indexing applications to create a search database and one or more indexes into the database. A scoring application determines the relevance of the objects, and a querying application locates objects in the database according to a search term. One or more of the indexes may be implemented by a hash table or other suitable data structure, where algorithms provide for adding objects to the indexes and searching for objects in the indexes. A ranking scheme sorts searchable items according to an estimate of the frequency that the items will be used in the future. Multiple indexes enable a combined prefix title and full-text content search of the database, accessible from a single search interface.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

creating two indexes in a client device, the two indexes including a prefix index that indexes documents stored on the client device according to partial words that are parts of words in titles of the documents, and farther including a content index that indexes the documents stored on the client device according to fall words found in textual content of the documents;

receiving, in a querying application running on the client device, a desktop search request including a given search term;

querying the prefix index, by the querying application, to identify two or more first documents stored on the client device, where each first document has a title that includes a word that matches the given search term or that has a prefix that matches the given search term;

querying the content index, by the querying application, to identify two or more second documents stored on the client device, where each second document has textual content that includes a full word that matches the given search term;

ranking the first documents and separately ranking the second documents to identify highest ranking first documents and highest ranking second documents stored on the client device;

determining a relevance score for each of the highest ranking first documents and the highest ranking second documents;

determining a first combined relevance score of the highest ranking first documents and a second combined relevance score of the highest ranking second documents;

displaying data identifying the highest ranking first documents above data identifying the highest ranking second documents in a results window on the display device when the combined relevance score of the first documents exceeds the combined relevance score of the second documents; and

displaying data identifying the highest ranking second documents above data identifying the highest ranking first documents in the results window on the display device when the combined relevance score of the first documents exceeds the combined relevance score of the second documents.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein data identifying the highest ranking first documents is displayed above data identifying the highest ranking second documents.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the data identifying the highest ranking first documents comprises the title of, and a path and icon associated with, each of the highest ranking first documents, and

the data identifying the highest ranking second documents comprises an icon associated with each of the highest ranking second documents, and a portion of the textual content of each of the highest ranking second documents, each respective portion including the search term.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a combined total quantity of the first documents and the second documents; and

displaying a link to a separate web page that identifies all the first documents and the second documents, the link indicating the combined total quantity of the first documents and the second documents.

5. A system comprising:

a client device; and

a computer-readable medium coupled to the client device having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the client device, cause the client device to perform operations comprising;

creating two indexes, the two indexes including a prefix index that indexes documents stored on the client device according to partial words that are parts of words in titles of the documents, and farther including a content index that indexes the documents stored on the client device according to full words found in textual content of the documents,

receiving a desktop search request including a given search term;

querying the prefix index to identify two or more first documents stored on the client device, where each first document has a title that includes a word that matches the given search term or that has a prefix that matches the given search term,

querying the content index to identify two or more second documents stored on the client device, where each second document has textual content that includes a full word that matches the given search term,

ranking the first documents and separately ranking the second documents to identify highest ranking first documents and highest ranking second documents stored on the client device, and

determining a relevance score for each of the highest ranking first documents and the highest ranking second documents;

determining a first combined relevance score of the highest ranking first documents and a second combined relevance score of the highest ranking second documents;

displaying data identifying the highest ranking first documents above data identifying the highest ranking second documents in a results window on the display device when the combined relevance score of the first documents exceeds the combined relevance score of the second documents; and

displaying data identifying the highest ranking second documents above data identifying the highest ranking first documents in the results window on the display device when the combined relevance score of the first documents exceeds the combined relevance score of the second documents.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein data identifying the highest ranking first documents is displayed above data identifying the highest ranking second documents.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein:

the data identifying the highest ranking first documents comprises the title of, and a path and icon associated with, each of the highest ranking first documents, and

the data identifying the highest ranking second documents comprises an icon associated with each of the highest ranking second documents, and a portion of the textual content of each of the highest ranking second documents, each respective portion including the search term.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a combined total quantity of the first documents and the second documents; and

displaying a link to a separate web page that identifies all the first documents and the second documents, the link indicating the combined total quantity of the first documents and the second documents.

9. A computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

creating two indexes in a client device, the two indexes including a prefix index that indexes documents stored on the client device according to partial words that are parts of words in titles of the documents, and further including a content index that indexes the documents stored on the client device according to full words found in textual content of the documents;

receiving a desktop search request including a given search term;

querying the prefix index to identify two or more first documents stored on the client device, where each first document has a title that includes a word that matches the given search term or that has a prefix that matches the given search term;

querying the content index to identify two or more second documents stored on the client device, where each second document has textual content that includes a full word that matches the given search term;

ranking the first documents and separately ranking the second documents to identify highest ranking first documents and highest ranking second documents stored on the client device; and

determining a relevance score for each of the highest ranking first documents and the highest ranking second documents;

determining a first combined relevance score of the highest ranking first documents and a second combined relevance score of the highest ranking second documents;

displaying data identifying the highest ranking first documents above data identifying the highest ranking second documents in a results window on the display device when the combined relevance score of the first documents exceeds the combined relevance score of the second documents; and

displaying data identifying the highest ranking second documents above data identifying the highest ranking first documents in the results window on the display device when the combined relevance score of the first documents exceeds the combined relevance score of the second documents.

10. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein data identifying the highest ranking first documents is displayed above data identifying the highest ranking second documents.

11. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein:

the data identifying the highest ranking first documents comprises the title of, and a path and icon associated with, each of the highest ranking first documents, and

the data identifying the highest ranking second documents comprises an icon associated with each of the highest ranking second documents, and a portion of the textual content of each of the highest ranking second documents, each respective portion including the search term.

12. The computer storage medium of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a combined total quantity of the first documents and the second documents; and

displaying a link to a separate web page that identifies all the first documents and the second documents, the link indicating the combined total quantity of the first documents and the second documents.