Configuring a search engine results page with environment-specific information

• US 7,756,903 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2006
• Issued: 07/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yahoo Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kumar, Amit
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le; Michael
• Application Number:
  US11/638,061
• Publication Number:
  US 20080140806A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,309 Days
• Field of Search: 707/100
• US Class Current: 707/802
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

An administrator for an environment may access an administration console to provide configuration information to tailor a search engine results page (SERP) for users in that environment. The administrator specifies which particular position on a SERP is to be reserved for environment specific information. The administrator may specify environment specific content that goes into a particular position. Rather than providing the content itself, the administrator might provide information to derive the environment specific content that goes into a particular position. The configuration information may be stored such that it is available for a search engine to configure a SERP with environment specific information. However, another device such as a proxy that is interposed between a client that issued the search query and the search engine may configure the SERP with environment specific information.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving at a proxy a request from a client;

wherein the request comprises a search query submitted by a user;

the proxy performing a modification to the request to generate a modified request, wherein the modification includes adding to the request a proxy identifier that uniquely identifies the proxy, wherein the modification is performed by the proxy without regard to the content of the request from the client;

the proxy forwarding the modified request to a search engine, wherein the proxy identifier in the modified request indicates to the search engine a particular proxy-specific customization to apply to a search engine results page to generate a customized search engine results page, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization is one of a plurality of proxy-specific customizations, wherein each of the plurality of proxy-specific customizations is mapped to a corresponding proxy identifier;

receiving at the proxy, from the search engine, the customized search engine results page having (a) search result items that match the search query and (b) the particular proxy-specific customization, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization includes at least one of;

proxy-specific information;

or

placeholders for proxy-specific information; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the search results page received from the search engine includes proxy-specific information; and

wherein the modification includes adding contextual information to allow the search engine to determine the proxy-specific information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the search results page received from the search engine includes placeholders for proxy-specific information; and

further comprises;

based on stored configuration information associated with the proxy, the proxy inserting proxy-specific content in one or more of the placeholders.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

positioning the placeholders in particular positions in the customized search engine results page based on stored configuration information that is associated with the proxy.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

deriving the proxy-specific information based on stored configuration information that is associated with the proxy; and

positioning the proxy-specific information in particular positions in the search engine results page based on the stored configuration information.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after receiving the customized search engine results page, deriving proxy-specific information;

inserting the proxy-specific information into one or more of the placeholders; and

after inserting the proxy-specific information, providing the search engine results page to the client.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein deriving proxy-specific information comprises accessing stored configuration information.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

based on information contained within the customized search engine results page returned from the search engine, initiating a domain specific search; and

positioning search results from the domain specific search into one or more of the placeholders.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the proxy from an administrator user interface, new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information, wherein the new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information comprises proxy-specific content information and proxy-specific content position information for customizing search engine results pages requested by clients through the proxy;

transmitting the new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information and the proxy identifier to the search engine.

9. A method comprising:

receiving at a search engine a modified request sent from a proxy, wherein the proxy, before sending the modified request to the search engine, performed a modification to a request received from a client to generate the modified request, wherein the request comprises a search query submitted by a user, wherein the modification included adding to the request a proxy identifier that uniquely identifies the proxy, wherein the modification was performed by the proxy without regard to the content of the request from the client;

in response to receiving the modified request and without regard to the content of the request sent by the client, the search engine selecting a particular proxy-specific customization for a search engine results page based on the proxy identifier included in the modified request, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization is selected from a mapping of each of a plurality of proxy identifiers to a corresponding proxy-specific customization;

the search engine determining how to customize the search engine results page to generate a customized search engine results page based on the particular proxy-specific customization;

the search engine generating a customized search engine results page having (a) search result items that match the search request and (b) the particular proxy-specific customization, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization includes at least one of;

proxy-specific information;

or

placeholders for proxy-specific information;

sending the customized search engine results page from the search engine to the proxy; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving, from an administrator user interface, new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information and a particular proxy identifier, wherein the new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information comprises proxy-specific content information and proxy-specific content position information for customizing search engine results pages requested by clients through a particular proxy identified by the particular proxy identifier;

storing data mapping the new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information to the particular proxy identifier.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving, from a particular proxy, new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information and a particular proxy identifier uniquely identifying the particular proxy, wherein the new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information comprises proxy-specific content information and proxy-specific content position information for customizing search engine results pages requested by clients through the particular proxy identified by the particular proxy identifier;

storing data mapping the new proxy-specific search engine results page customization information to the particular proxy identifier.

13. A computer-readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, causes the processors to perform a method comprising:

receiving at a proxy a request from a client;

wherein the request comprises a search query submitted by a user;

the proxy performing a modification to the request to generate a modified request, wherein the modification includes adding to the request a proxy identifier that uniquely identifies the proxy, wherein the modification is performed by the proxy without regard to the content of the request from the client;

the proxy forwarding the modified request to a search engine, wherein the proxy identifier in the modified request indicates to the search engine a particular proxy-specific customization to apply to a search engine results page to generate a customized search engine results page, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization is one of a plurality of proxy-specific customizations, wherein each of the plurality of proxy-specific customizations is mapped to a corresponding proxy identifier;

receiving at the proxy, from the search engine, the customized search engine results page having (a) search result items that match the search query and (b) the particular proxy-specific customization, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization includes at least one of;

proxy-specific information;

or

placeholders for proxy-specific information; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

14. A computer-readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the processors to perform a method comprising:

receiving at a search engine a modified request sent from a proxy, wherein the proxy, before sending the modified request to the search engine, performed a modification to a request received from a client to generate the modified request, wherein the request comprises a search query submitted by a user, wherein the modification included adding to the request a proxy identifier that uniquely identifies the proxy, wherein the modification was performed by the proxy without regard to the content of the request from the client;

in response to receiving the modified request and without regard to the content of the request sent by the client, the search engine selecting a particular proxy-specific customization for a search engine results page based on the proxy identifier included in the modified request, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization is selected from a mapping of each of a plurality of proxy identifiers to a corresponding proxy-specific customization;

the search engine determining how to customize the search engine results page to generate a customized search engine results page based on the particular proxy-specific customization;

the search engine generating a customized search engine results page having (a) search result items that match the search request and (b) the particular proxy-specific customization, wherein the particular proxy-specific customization includes at least one of;

proxy-specific information;

or

placeholders for proxy-specific information;

sending the customized search engine results page from the search engine to the proxy; and

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.