Ranking custom search results

• US 7,987,185 B1
• Filed: 12/29/2006
• Issued: 07/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Mysen, Clarence Christopher, Verma, Naval, Chen, Johnny
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim; Charles
• Assistant Examiner(s): MUELLER, KURT A
• Application Number:
  US11/618,321
• Time in Patent Office: 1,670 Days
• Field of Search: 707/732
• US Class Current: 707/733
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

A system searches a first search index based on a search query to obtain first search results and searches a second search index based on the search query to obtain second search results. The system further ranks the first search results using a first ranking algorithm and one or more first ranking parameters to produce ranked first search results, and ranks the second search results using a second ranking algorithm and one or more second ranking parameters to produce second search results, where the one or more first ranking parameters are different than the one or more second ranking parameters and where the one or more second ranking parameters include at least one of previous user feedback associated with custom content that corresponds to the second search index, annotations of the custom content provided by a user, or usage patterns associated with users previously accessing and searching the custom content. The system also provides the ranked first and second search results to a user.

Claims

1. A method performed by one or more server devices, the method comprising:

searching, using one or more hardware components associated with the one or more server devices, a custom search index based on a search query received from a user to obtain first search results, where the custom search index was created based on content specified by the user;

searching, using one or more hardware components associated with the one or more server devices, a web search index based on the search query to obtain second search results, where the web search index is different from the custom search index;

ranking, using one or more hardware components associated with the one or more server devices, the first search results using a ranking algorithm based on one or more ranking parameters to produce ranked first search results, where the one or more ranking parameters are specified by the user;

ranking, using one or more hardware components associated with the one or more server devices, the second search results using a web ranking algorithm, where the web ranking algorithm is different from the ranking algorithm;

combining, using one or more hardware components associated with the one or more server devices, the ranked first search results and the ranked second search results into a search results document; and

providing, using one or more hardware components associated with the one or more server devices, the search results document to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, where the content is specified by the user by receiving first custom content from the user, the method further comprising:

indexing the received first custom content to produce the custom search index.

3. The method of claim 2, where the first custom content is received from the user by being uploaded from the user via an application programming interface (API).

4. The method of claim 1, where the web content includes text associated with a plurality of documents crawled on the web.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving second custom content associated with a second user; and

indexing the second custom content to produce a second custom search index, where the second custom search index is different than the custom search index and the web search index.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

searching the second custom content using the second custom search index to obtain third search results;

ranking the third search results using a second ranking algorithm and second ranking parameters to produce ranked third search results, where the second ranking parameters are specified by the second user; and

providing the ranked third search results to the user.

7. The method of claim 2, where the one or more ranking parameters comprise at least one of previous user feedback associated with custom content that corresponds to the custom search index, annotations of the custom content provided by the user, or usage patterns associated with other users previously accessing and searching the custom content.

8. The method of claim 7, where the one or more ranking parameters further comprise ratings associated with the previous user feedback that rate a quality of the previous user feedback.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

receiving the custom content from the user and the second content from the second user via an extensible markup language application programming interface.

10. A system, comprising:

one or more server devices comprising;

means for searching a custom search index based on a search query to obtain first search results, where the custom search index was created based on content specified by a user;

means for searching a web search index based on the search query to obtain second search results, where the web search index is different from the custom search index;

means for ranking the first search results using a ranking algorithm based on one or more ranking parameters to produce ranked first search results, where the one or more ranking parameters are specified by the user and comprise at least one of previous user feedback associated with the content specified by the user, annotations to the content specified by the user and provided by the user, or usage patterns associated with users previously accessing the content specified by the user;

means for ranking the second search results using a web ranking algorithm, where the web ranking algorithm is different from the ranking algorithm;

means for combining the ranked first search results and the ranked second search results into a search results document; and

means for providing the search results document to the user.