Method and system for aggregating reviews and searching within reviews for a product

• US 8,161,030 B2
• Filed: 05/05/2011
• Issued: 04/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Ruhl, Jan Matthias, Datar, Mayur D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Radtke, Mark Andrew X
• Application Number:
  US13/102,023
• Publication Number:
  US 20110208669A1
• Time in Patent Office: 348 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0278 Product appraisal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products

Abstract

The embodiments disclosed herein include new, more efficient ways to collect product reviews from the Internet, aggregate reviews for the same product, and provide an aggregated review to end users in a searchable format. One aspect of the invention is a graphical user interface on a computer that includes a plurality of portions of reviews for a product and a search input area for entering search terms to search for reviews of the product that contain the search terms.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

at a client having one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs for execution by the one or more processors;

sending a request for an aggregated review of a product to a remote server,

receiving the aggregated review of the product from the remote server, wherein the aggregated review of the product is derived from a plurality of reviews of the product that are extracted from web pages,

displaying the aggregated review of the product, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes;

portions of multiple reviews of the product, wherein a respective review of the product provides a subjective evaluation of the product by a human, and

a list of phrases related to the product, wherein the phrases are automatically selected from a plurality of reviews of the product in accordance with their respective weighted occurrences in the reviews,

detecting selection of a phrase in the list of phrases; and

in response to detecting selection of the phrase in the list of phrases, displaying, in the aggregated review of the product, just portions of reviews of the product from reviews that contain the selected phrase.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first aggregate rating for the product, and the method further includes displaying a second aggregate rating of reviews matching the selected phrase.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first number of reviews of the product, and the method further includes displaying a second number of reviews matching the selected phrase.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews corresponding to the product, and the method further includes displaying a second list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews matching the selected phrase.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the aggregated review of the product is displayed in a single Web page.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the request is sent in response to a user initiated activity.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the user initiated activity comprises activating a hyperlink.

8. A computer-implemented method comprising:

at a server having one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs for execution by the one or more processors,

receiving a request for an aggregated review of a product from a client,

obtaining the aggregated review of the product, wherein the aggregated review of the product is derived from a plurality of reviews of the product that are extracted from crawled Web pages, and

sending the aggregated review of the product to the client for display,

wherein the aggregated review of the product includes;

portions of multiple reviews of the product, wherein a respective review of the product provides a subjective evaluation of the product by a human, and

information for displaying a list of phrases related to the product, wherein the phrases are automatically selected from a plurality of reviews of the product in accordance with their respective weighted occurrences in the reviews such that a user selection of a phrase in the list of phrases causes a display of just portions of reviews of the product from reviews that contain the selected phrase in the aggregated review of the product at the client.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising:

indexing individual and aggregated product reviews to produce a reviews index, wherein the reviews index maps search terms to reviews; and

storing the reviews index.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first aggregate rating for the product, and the method further includes, sending to the client information for displaying a second aggregate rating of reviews matching the selected phrase.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first number of reviews of the product, and the method further includes sending to the client information for displaying a second number of reviews matching the selected phrase.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews corresponding to the product, and the method further includes sending to the client information for displaying a second list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews matching the selected phrase.

13. A system comprising at least one server, the system comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory;

wherein said at least one server is configured to;

receive a request from a client for an aggregated review of a product;

obtain the aggregated review of the product, wherein the aggregated review of the product is derived from a plurality of reviews of the product that are extracted from crawled Web pages; and

send the aggregated review of the product to the client for display,

wherein the aggregated review of the product includes;

portions of multiple reviews associated with the product, wherein a respective review of the product provides a subjective evaluation of the product by a human, and

information for displaying a list of phrases related to the product, wherein the phrases are automatically selected from a plurality of reviews of the product in accordance with their respective weighted occurrences in the reviews such that a user selection of a phrase in the list of phrases causes a display of just portions of reviews of the product from reviews that contain the selected phrase in the aggregated review of the product at the client.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein said at least one server is configured to:

index individual and aggregated product reviews to produce a reviews index, wherein the reviews index maps search terms to reviews; and

store the reviews index.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first aggregate rating for the product, and said at least one server is configured to send to the client information for displaying a second aggregate rating of reviews matching the selected phrase.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first number of reviews of the product, and said at least one server is configured to send to the client information for displaying a second number of reviews matching the selected phrase.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews corresponding to the product, and said at least one server is configured to send to the client information for displaying a second list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews matching the selected phrase.

18. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon data representing sequences of instructions, which when executed by a server system having one or more processors and memory, cause the server system to:

receive a request for an aggregated review of a product from a client;

obtain the aggregated review of the product, wherein the aggregated review of the product is derived from a plurality of reviews of the product that are extracted from crawled Web pages; and

send the aggregated review of the product to the client for display,

wherein the aggregated review of the product includes;

portions of multiple reviews associated with the product, wherein a respective review of the product provides a subjective evaluation of the product by a human, and

information for displaying a list of phrases related to the product, wherein the phases are automatically selected from a plurality of reviews of the product in accordance with their respective weighted occurrences in the reviews such that a user selection of a phrase in the list of phrases causes a display of just portions of reviews of the product from reviews that contain the selected phrase in the aggregated review of the product at the client.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first aggregate rating for the product, and said at least one server is configured to send to the client information for displaying a second aggregate rating of reviews matching the selected phrase.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first number of reviews of the product, and said at least one server is configured to send to the client information for displaying a second number of reviews matching the selected phrase.

21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the aggregated review of the product includes a first list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews corresponding to the product, and said at least one server is configured to send to the client information for displaying a second list of review sources that link back to source web sites or to reviews matching the selected phrase.