Document search engine including highlighting of confident results

• US 7,836,391 B2
• Filed: 06/10/2003
• Issued: 11/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Tong, Simon
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong; Stephen S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel; Manglesh M
• Application Number:
  US10/457,488
• Publication Number:
  US 20040255237A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,716 Days
• Field of Search: 715/501.1, 715/205, 715/200, 715/234, 707/1, 707/3, 707/5, 707/10, 707/4
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

A search engine includes a decision component that determines whether documents that are returned in response to a user search query are likely to be very relevant to the search query. Links that refer to documents that the search engine determines to likely be very relevant may be displayed with visual cues that assist the user in browsing the links. The decision component may base its decision on a number of parameters, including: (1) the position of the document in a ranked list of search results, (2) the click through rate of the document, (3) relevance scores for the document and other documents that are returned as hits in response to the search query, and (4) whether the document is classified as a pornographic document (the search engine may refrain from showing visual cues for potentially pornographic documents).

Claims

1. A search engine implemented within a computer device, comprising:

a component to receive a user search query;

a document locator to identify documents responsive to the user search query; and

a decision component to;

rank the identified documents,

calculate a click-through rate associated with each of the identified documents, and

associate, with a link to a particular one of the identified documents, a thumbnail representation of the particular document in response to calculating that the click through rate associated with the particular document is higher, by at least a threshold amount, than the click through rates associated with all other ones of the identified documents.

2. The search engine of claim 1, where the identified documents are web documents.

3. The search engine of claim 1, where the click-through rate associated with the particular document is calculated based on a total number of times users have selected the particular document and a total number of times users have selected another one of the identified documents.

4. The search engine of claim 1, where the click-through rate associated with the particular document is calculated based on a total number of times users have selected the particular document responsive to the search query and a total number of times users have selected another one of the identified documents responsive to the search query.

5. The search engine of claim 1, where the decision component is further to associate the thumbnail representation with the link to the particular document additionally based on a relevance score for the particular document being higher, by at least a threshold amount, than relevance scores for all other ones of the identified documents.

6. The search engine of claim 1, where the decision component is further to associate the thumbnail representation with the link to the particular document based additionally on whether the particular document is classified to be a pornographic document.

7. The search engine of claim 1, where the thumbnail representation includes at least one of contrasting textual fonts, contrasting backgrounds, or textual labels.

8. The search engine of claim 1, where the click through rate associated with the particular document is based on a ratio of a number of times users have selected the particular document responsive to the search query to a number of times the search query has been received at the search engine.

9. The search engine of claim 1, where the decision component is further to associate the thumbnail representation with the link to the particular document based additionally on a parameter that defines a number of links that link to the particular document in which text of the links matches the search query.

10. A method performed by a computer system, the method comprising:

receiving, using one or more processors associated with the computer system, a search query;

identifying, using one or more processors associated with the computer system, links to a plurality of documents related to the search query, each of the documents having an associated relevance score in relation to the search query;

creating, using one or more processors associated with the computer system, a ranked list including the identified links;

associating, using one or more processors associated with the computer system, a graphic rendering with a link of the identified links, the link linking to a particular document, based on detecting that;

a relevance score associated with the particular document is greater, by at least a threshold amount, than relevance scores associated with all other documents associated with links in the ranked list, and

a click through rate associated with the particular document is greater, by at least a threshold amount, than click through rates associated with all other documents associated with links in the ranked list;

and

providing, using one or more processors associated with the computer system, the ranked list, where the associated graphic rendering is provided visually together with the link to the particular document.

11. The method of claim 10, where the documents are web documents.

12. The method of claim 10, where the graphic rendering is a thumbnail representation of the particular document.

13. The method of claim 10, where the click-through rate is calculated as a ratio representing a number of times users have selected the particular document to a number of times users have selected another one of the plurality of documents.

14. The method of claim 10, where the click-through rate is calculated as a ratio representing a total number of times users have selected the particular document in response to the search query to a total number of times users have selected another one of the plurality of documents.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

associating no graphic rendering with other ones of the identified links.

16. The method of claim 10, where the associating a graphic rendering with a link of the identified links is further based on detecting that the link to the particular document is ranked first in the ranked list.

17. The method of claim 10, where the graphic rendering includes at least one of contrasting textual fonts, contrasting backgrounds, or textual labels.

18. The method of claim 10, where the click-through rate is calculated as a ratio of a number of times users have selected the particular document in response to the search query to a number of times the search query was previously submitted.

19. The method of claim 10, where the associating a graphic rendering with a link of the identified links is further based on detecting that a number of links that link to the particular document in which text of the links matches the search query is greater than a threshold.

20. One or more storage devices containing program instructions that are executable by a processor, the one or more storage devices comprising:

one or more instructions to receive a search query;

one or more instructions to identify links to a plurality of documents related to the search query, each of the documents having an associated relevance score;

one or more instructions to rank the identified links, where the ranking is based, at least in part, on parameters other than the relevance scores;

one or more instructions to identify that the ranked identified links include a link to a particular one of the plurality of documents when;

a click through rate associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents is greater, by at least a threshold amount, than click through rates associated with all other documents in the plurality of documents, and

the relevance score associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents is higher, by at least a threshold amount, than the relevance scores associated with all other documents in the plurality of documents;

one or more instructions to associate a graphic rendering with the identified link to the particular one of the plurality of documents, when the ranked identified links include the link to the particular one of the plurality of documents; and

one or more instructions to provide the ranked identified links for display, where the associated graphic rendering is provided visually together with the link to the particular one of the plurality of documents.

21. The one or more storage devices of claim 20, where the one or more instructions to identify whether the ranked identified links include a link to a particular one of the plurality of documents are further based on a ratio representing a number of times users have selected the particular one of the plurality of documents to a number of times users have selected other ones of the plurality of documents.

22. The one or more storage devices of claim 20, where the one or more instructions to identify whether the ranked identified links include a link to a particular one of the plurality of documents are further based on a ratio representing a total number of times users have selected the particular one of the plurality of documents in response to the search query to a total number of times users have selected other ones of the plurality of documents in response to the search query.

23. The one or more storage devices of claim 20, where the one or more instructions to identify that the ranked identified links include a link to a particular one of the plurality of documents when, additionally, the link to the particular one of the plurality of documents is ranked first in the ranked identified links.

24. A computing device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory including instructions that cause the processor to;

identify links to a plurality of documents related to a search query, each of the documents having an associated relevance score,

create, based on the relevance scores, a ranked list including the identified links,

compute a click-through rate for the identified links with respect to the search query,

calculate whether to associate a graphic rendering with at least one identified link based on;

whether the relevance score associated with the at least one identified link is higher, by at least a threshold amount, than the relevance scores associated with all other ones of the identified links,

whether the click-through rate associated with the at least one identified link is higher, by at least a threshold amount, than the click-through rates associated with all other ones of the identified links, and

whether the at least one identified link is associated with a pornographic document; and

provide the identified links for display, where the associated graphic rendering is provided visually together with the at least one identified link in response to calculating that a graphic rendering is to be associated with the at least one identified link.

25. The computing device of claim 24, where the instructions further cause the processor to:

not provide the associated graphic rendering visually together with the at least one identified link when the click-through rate for the at least one identified link is not higher, by at least the threshold amount, than the click-through rates of all other ones of the identified links.

26. The computing device of claim 24, where the instructions further cause the processor to calculate whether to associate a graphic rendering with the at least one identified link irrespective of the rank of the at least one identified link.

27. A system comprising:

one or more devices comprising;

means for identifying links to a plurality of documents related to a search query, each of the documents having an associated relevance score;

means for ranking the identified links;

means for calculating whether the relevance score associated with a particular one of the plurality of documents differs from the relevance scores associated with all the other ones of the plurality of documents by at least a first threshold value;

means for calculating whether a click through rate associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents differs from the click through rates associated with all the other ones of the plurality of documents by at least a second threshold value;

means for associating, with a link associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents, a graphic rendering corresponding to the particular one of the plurality of documents when the relevance score associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents differs from the relevance scores associated with all the other ones of the plurality of documents by at least the first threshold value and when the click through rate associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents differs from the click through rates of all the other ones of the plurality of documents by at least the second threshold value; and

means for providing the identified links for display, where the associated graphic rendering is provided visually together with the link associated with the particular one of the plurality of documents.

28. The device of claim 27, where one or more of the identified links that are ranked higher on the ranked list than the at least one identified link are not provided together with graphic renderings.

29. The device of claim 27, where the graphic rendering is representative of contents of the particular document.

30. A computer-program product, tangibly stored on one or more memory devices, the product comprising instructions executable to cause a processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving a search query;

identifying a plurality of links to documents, each link having a relevance score in relation to the received search query;

ranking the links based on the relevance scores and based, at least in part, on parameters other than the relevance scores;

comparing, to a threshold value, differences in values among the relevance scores associated with the links;

selecting one of the links for which a graphic indication is to be provided, the selecting being based on

a click through rate of the selected link being higher, by at least a threshold amount, than click through rates of all other links in the plurality of links, the selecting being further based on at least one of the following parameters;

the selected link'"'"'s rank as specified by the ranking;

the relevance score associated with the selected link being higher, by at least a threshold amount, than the relevance scores associated with all the other links in the plurality of links;

or

a classification that the selected link is associated with a pornographic document; and

outputting the links, the ranking, and an indication that the selected link is to be displayed with the graphic indication.

31. The computer-program product of claim 30, where at least some of the outputted links are not provided with an associated graphic indication.

32. The computer-program product of claim 31, where at least one of those of the outputted links that are not provided with an associated graphic rendering has a rank that is higher than the selected link'"'"'s rank.