Method for human editing of information in search results

• US 8,099,406 B2
• Filed: 01/03/2011
• Issued: 01/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Advanced Research LLC
• Original Assignee: Bryant Christopher Lee
• Inventors: Lee, Bryant Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Trujillo, James
• Application Number:
  US12/983,363
• Publication Number:
  US 20110191317A1
• Time in Patent Office: 379 Days
• Field of Search: 707/694, 707/695, 707/706, 707/722, 707/769
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

A search engine may perform a search for a user search query. Result items may be returned as a result of the search. The user may enter new human edited information for some of the result items. The new human edited information may be displayed when other users search and view some of the result items at a later time.

Claims

1. A method for human editing of information in search engine results, the method performed by a computer system having access to a database, the method comprising:

receiving at the computer system a search query from a user;

performing a search over a set of data in response to the search query, the set of data being at the computer system or accessible to the computer system;

generating a set of result items returned from the search over the set of data;

presenting the set of result items in conjunction with a method of using human edited information in search engine results comprising;

wherein some of the result items in the set of result items have fields associated with them;

wherein a field is a visible interface element;

wherein at least one result item has a human edited information field, which is a field that is configured to contain human edited information;

retrieving from the database human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items and loading it into the human edited information field of the at least one result item;

displaying the set of result items and the human edited information for the at least one result item in a results document;

receiving input from the user in the human edited information field of the at least one result item where the input is used to enter changes to, modify, or delete the human edited information for the at least one result item;

wherein the human edited information for a result item is a shared annotation that is editable by other users via the human edited information field of the result item;

wherein at least part of the input received from the user is stored in the database to be available for later use in presenting human edited information of a later set of result items returned in response to later search queries of later users.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the results document includes a discussion component for user discussion or a link to a discussion component for user discussion.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the results document includes a version control component that displays information about one or more previous versions of the results document or a link to a version control component that displays information about one or more previous versions of the results document;

wherein each of the one or more previous versions of the results document display a past human edited information of the set of result items, the past human edited information of the set of result items being generated at the current time or having been generated at a previous time by a method of using human edited information comprising;

retrieving from the database past human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items and loading it into the human edited information field of the at least one result item;

wherein the past human edited information for the at least one result item was received from other users in the human edited information field of the at least one result item, the at least one result item having been displayed in a prior results document that was returned to the other users;

wherein the past human edited information was received from the other users prior to a specific time, the specific time being associated with the one or more previous versions of the results document;

displaying the set of result items and the past human edited information for the at least one result item in the one or more previous versions of the results document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the human edited information of the at least one result item comprises a table of contents of the at least one result item.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the human edited information of the at least one result item contains at least one textual sentence.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the human edited information of the at least one result item comprises a list of keywords.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting a test to the user to determine that he or she is a human and not a computer program before user input of human edited information for the result items is accepted.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising restrciting the user to entering human edited information for the result items in the set of result items in the results document at most a limited number of times over a limited time period.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the set of result items in conjunction with a method of using human edited information in search engine results further comprises:

wherein the displayed human edited information of the at least one result item only contains human edited information that was entered by other users into the human edited information field of the at least one result item from prior results documents that were returned in response to searches for substantially the same search query.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the search query received from the user is one search query from a set of merged search queries;

wherein presenting the set of result items in conjunction with a method of using human edited information in search engine results further comprises;

wherein the displayed human edited information of the at least one result item only contains human edited information that was entered by other users into the human edited information field of the at least one result item from a prior results document that was returned after receipt of a search query from the set of merged search queries earlier in time.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the results document includes a merge component that displays information about one or more sets of merged search queries or a link to a merge component that displays information about one or more sets of merged search queries.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the results document includes user interface elements to add one or more search queries to a set of merged search queries or to remove one or more search queries from a set of merged search queries.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the user and the other users are divided into one or more classes;

wherein the user is in a class;

wherein presenting the set of result items in conjunction with a method of using human edited information in search engine results further comprises;

wherein the displayed human edited information of the at least one result item only contains human edited information that was entered by other users in the same class as the user.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items that was retrieved from the database includes an image that was edited, changed, or uploaded by the other users.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items that was retrieved from the database includes a video that was edited, changed, or uploaded by the other users.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein input into the human edited information field is accepted in the form of a markup language.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein interface elements allow the user to add himself to a watch list of a result item;

wherein the user is notified by a message when another user edits the related information of the result item of which the user is on the watch list.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items provides a content summary for the at least one result item.

19. A system including at least one hardware computer system having access to a database, the system configured to:

receive at the computer system a search query from a user;

perform a search over a set of data in response to the search query, the set of data being at the computer system or accessible to the computer system;

generate a set of result items returned from the search over the set of data;

present the set of result items in conjunction with a method of using human edited information in search engine results comprising;

wherein some of the result items in the set of result items have fields associated with them;

wherein a field is a visible interface element;

wherein at least one result item has a human edited information field, which is a field that is configured to contain human edited information;

retrieving from the database human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items and loading it into the human edited information field of the at least one result item;

displaying the set of result items and the human edited information for the at least one result item in a results document;

receiving input from the user in the human edited information field of the at least one result item where the input is used to enter changes to, modify, or delete the human edited information for the at least one result item;

wherein the human edited information for a result item is a shared annotation that is editable by other users via the human edited information field of the result item;

wherein at least part of the input received from the user is stored in the database to be available for later use in presenting human edited information of a later set of result items returned in response to later search queries of later users.

20. A non-transitory computer usable physical medium for storing instructions having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method for human editing of information in search engine results, said method using a computer system having access to a database, said method comprising:

receiving at the computer system a search query from a user;

performing a search over a set of data in response to the search query, the set of data being at the computer system or accessible to the computer system;

generating a set of result items returned from the search over the set of data;

presenting the set of result items in conjunction with a method of using human edited information in search engine results comprising;

wherein some of the result items in the set of result items have fields associated with them;

wherein a field is a visible interface element;

wherein at least one result item has a human edited information field, which is a field that is configured to contain human edited information;

retrieving from the database human edited information for the at least one result item in the set of result items and loading it into the human edited information field of the at least one result item;

displaying the set of result items and the human edited information for the at least one result item in a results document;

receiving input from the user in the human edited information field of the at least one result item where the input is used to enter changes to, modify, or delete the human edited information for the at least one result item;

wherein the human edited information for a result item is a shared annotation that is editable by other users via the human edited information field of the result item;

wherein at least part of the input received from the user is stored in the database to be available for later use in presenting human edited information of a later set of result items returned in response to later search queries of later users.