Method and system to facilitate a search of an information resource

• US 8,090,698 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2004
• Issued: 01/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Billingsley, Eric Noel, Monier, Louis Marcel Gino, Arora, Aditya
• Primary Examiner(s): Lu, Kuen
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le, Jessica N
• Application Number:
  US10/841,583
• Publication Number:
  US 20050251510A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,797 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707 4- 6, 707101-1041, 705/2, 705/1, 709/203, 709/225, 709/229, 715/200
• US Class Current: 707/705
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90 Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/906 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A method and system facilitate a search of an information resource. The system identifies data items within the information resource and determines a respective attribute value from each data item. The system analyzes the attribute values to identify a distribution of the data items based on a predetermined range of attribute values that are associated with the first attribute and determines if the identified distribution of data items facilitates the search of the information resource.

Claims

1. A system to facilitate a search of an information resource, the system comprising:

at least one machine, the at least one machine respectively including a processor for executing;

an identifying module to identify a plurality of data items within the information resource;

an analyzing module to;

generate a plurality of attribute values, the plurality of attribute values including, for each data item of the plurality of data items, an attribute value that corresponds to an attribute that is associated with each of the plurality of data items; and

identify a distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute values;

a determining module to;

register the distribution for communication based on a determination that the distribution facilitates a filtering of the plurality of data items, the determination based on the distribution being at least a bimodal distribution and a frequency of the plurality of data items for at least two of the plurality of attribute values in the distribution exceeding a threshold; and

a communication module to communicate the distribution as a graph that includes a plurality of components corresponding to the plurality of attribute values, and to receive a selection of at least one of the plurality of components to facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of attribute values is a numeric attribute value or a text attribute value.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the identifying module is to identify the plurality of data items based on at least one of a keyword request, a browse request or a first attribute.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the distribution is based on a plurality of counts of the plurality of data items over a plurality of respective ranges of the attribute values.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining module is to substitute a second plurality of sub-range attribute values for a first plurality of sub-range attribute values based on a determination that the second plurality of sub-range attribute values would better facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication module is to communicate the distribution of the plurality of data items to the user.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication module is to display to the user at least one of a histogram, a pie chart, or frequency values.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication module is to generate a plurality of attribute selectors based on a plurality of distributions of the plurality of data items and to communicate the plurality of attribute selectors to the user.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of data items are a plurality of listings in a network-based marketplace, and each listing of the plurality of listings comprises at least one of a group including an item listing or a service listing.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the identification module is to identify the plurality of data items without a query to a database.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the attribute is associated with each of the plurality of data items based on each of the plurality of data items being classified within a category.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the attribute is associated with each of the plurality of data items based on the attribute being common to each of the plurality of data items.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of attribute values is a plurality of sub-range attribute values or a plurality of exact-match attribute values.

14. A computer-implemented method to facilitate a search of an information resource, the method comprising:

identifying, by a processor, a plurality of data items within the information resource;

generating a plurality of attribute values, the plurality of attribute values including, for each data item of the plurality of data items, an attribute value corresponding to an attribute that is associated with each of the plurality of data items;

identifying a distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute values;

registering the distribution for communication based on a determination that the distribution facilitates a filtering of the plurality of data items, the determination based on the distribution being at least a bimodal distribution and a frequency of the plurality of data items for at least two of the plurality of attribute values in the distribution exceeding a threshold;

communicating the distribution as a graph that includes a plurality of components corresponding to the plurality of attribute values; and

receiving a selection of at least one of the plurality of components to facilitate the search filtering of the plurality of data items.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein each of the plurality of attribute values is a numeric attribute value or a text attribute value.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the identifying of the plurality of data items includes at least one of a group including identifying based on keyword request, a browse request, or a first attribute.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of attribute values is a first plurality of sub-range attribute values or a plurality of exact-match attribute values.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further including substituting a second plurality of sub-range attribute values for the first plurality of sub-range attribute values.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further including communicating the distribution of the plurality of data items to a user.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19, wherein the communicating of the distribution of the plurality of data items to the user includes displaying to the user at least one of a group including a histogram, a pie chart, or frequency values.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further including generating a plurality of attribute selectors based on a plurality of distributions of the plurality of data items and communicating the plurality of attribute selectors to the user.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of data items are a plurality of listings in a network-based marketplace, and each listing of the plurality of listings comprises at least one of a group including an item listing or a service listing.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the identifying the plurality of data items is performed without querying a database.

24. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a set of instructions that, when executed by the machine, cause the machine to:

identify a plurality of data items within the information resource;

generate a plurality of attribute values, the plurality of attribute values including, for each data item of the plurality of data items, an attribute value corresponding to an attribute that is associated with each of the plurality of data items;

identifying a distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute values;

register the distribution for communication based on a determination that the distribution facilitates a filtering of the plurality of data items, the determination based on the distribution being a least a bimodal distribution and a frequency of the plurality of data items for at least two of the plurality of attribute values in the distribution exceeding a threshold; and

communicate the distribution as a graph that includes a plurality of components corresponding to the plurality of attribute values; and

receive a selection of at least one of the plurality of components to facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items.

25. A system to facilitate a search of an information resource, the system comprising:

at least one machine, the at least one machine respectively including a processor for executing;

a first means for identifying a plurality of data items within the information resource;

a second means for generating a plurality of attribute values, the plurality of attribute values including, for each data item of the plurality of data items, an attribute value that corresponds to an attribute that is associated with each of the plurality of data items; and

identifying a distribution of the plurality of data items across the plurality of attribute values;

a third means for registering the distribution for communication based on a determination that the distribution facilitates a filtering of the plurality of data items, the determination based on the distribution being a least a bimodal distribution and a frequency of the plurality of data items for at least two of the plurality of attribute values in the distribution exceeding a threshold; and

a fourth means for communicating the distribution as a graph that includes a plurality of components corresponding to the plurality of attribute values, and receiving a selection of at least one of the plurality of components to facilitate the filtering of the plurality of data items.