Clustered search processing

• US 8,326,841 B2
• Filed: 10/11/2011
• Issued: 12/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ott, Edward Stanley IV, Saft, Keith David, Boerries, Marco, Tendjoukian, Meher, Yiu, Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Uyen T.
• Application Number:
  US13/271,198
• Publication Number:
  US 20120102044A1
• Time in Patent Office: 420 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/748
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9035 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• 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 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for searching data and grouping search results into clusters that are ordered according to search relevance. Each cluster comprises one or more data type, such as images, web pages, local information, news, advertisements, and the like. In one embodiment, a search term is evaluated for related concepts indicating categories of data sources to search. Data sources may also be identified by context information such as a location of a client device, a currently running application, and the like. Search results in each cluster are ordered by relevance and each cluster is given a score based on an aggregate of the relevance within the cluster. Each cluster score may be modified based on one or more corresponding concepts and/or context information. The clusters are ordered based on the modified scores. Content, including advertisements, may also be added to the ordered list to appear as another cluster.

Claims

1. A device, comprising:

memory for storing data and instructions; and

one or more processors that executes instructions to perform actions, comprising;

receiving a search query;

identifying a plurality of concepts from the search query;

determining contextual data for the search query;

performing searches over each of a plurality of concept-specific data sources and a plurality of context-specific data sources selected based on the plurality of concepts and the contextual data, to generate a plurality of clusters where the search results from each data source comprises a different cluster in the plurality of clusters;

performing searches over non-specific data sources to generate additional clusters in the plurality of clusters, where the search results for non-specific data sources generating the additional clusters;

generating an ordered listing of the clusters based on an overall score for each cluster that is determined from scores for each result within a given cluster;

modifying the ordered listing of the clusters by modifying at least one cluster score based on a weighting of clusters associated with at least one concept or contextual data from the search query; and

displaying at least a portion of some of the ordered listing of the clusters.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein displaying at least a portion further comprises including for display at least one advertisement.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein at least one cluster in the ordered listing of clusters includes information selected based on at least one of an aggregate analysis of click streams, a prior behavior of a user associated with the search query, or a location of the user associated with the search query.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein at least one cluster of search results can be expanded or reduced to display a different number of listed results within the cluster independent of at least one other cluster.

5. The device of claim 1, wherein a first displayed cluster is configured to display more search results than a second displayed cluster to indicate that the first cluster is more relevant to the search query than the second cluster.

6. The device of claim 1, wherein the overall score for each cluster is determined using a weighted average that is based on a cumulative score of relevance scores for each result within a given cluster.

7. A storage device that includes instructions that when executed by one or more processors performs actions, comprising:

identifying a plurality of concepts in a search query;

determining contextual data for the search query;

performing searches over each of a plurality of concept-specific data sources and a plurality of context-specific data sources selected based on the plurality of concepts and the contextual data for the search query, and further performing searches over a plurality of non-specific data sources, to generate a plurality of clusters where the search results from each data source comprises a different cluster in the plurality of clusters;

generating an ordered listing of the clusters based on an overall score for each cluster that is determined from scores for each result within a given cluster;

modifying the ordered listing of/be clusters by modifying at least one cluster score based on a weighting of clusters associated with at least one concept or contextual data from the search query; and

displaying at least a portion of some of the modified ordered listing of the clusters.

8. The storage device of claim 7, wherein displaying at least a portion further comprises including for display at least one advertisement.

9. The storage device of claim 7, wherein at least one cluster in the ordered listing of clusters includes information selected based on at least one of an aggregate analysis of click streams, a prior behavior of a user associated with the search query, or a location of the user associated with the search query.

10. The storage device of claim 7, wherein at least one cluster of search results can be expanded or reduced to display a different number of listed results within the cluster independent of at least one other cluster.

11. The storage device of claim 7, wherein a first displayed cluster is configured to display more search results than a second displayed cluster to indicate that the first cluster is more relevant to the search query than the second cluster.

12. The storage device of claim 7, wherein the overall score for each cluster is determined using a weighted average based on a cumulative score of relevance scores for each result within a given cluster.

13. The storage device of claim 7, further displaying the search query with the displayed ordered clusters.

14. A system, comprising:

one or more storage devices for storing one or more concept-specific data sources;

one or more other storage devices for storing one or more context-specific data sources; and

a processor that executes instructions that perform actions, including;

identifying a plurality of concepts in a search query;

determining contextual data for the search query;

performing searches over each of a plurality of concept-specific data sources and a plurality of context-specific data sources selected based on the plurality of concepts and the contextual data for the search query, and further performing searches over a plurality of non-specific data sources, to generate a plurality of clusters, the search results from each data source comprising a different cluster in the plurality of clusters;

generating an ordered listing of the clusters based on an overall score for each cluster that is determined from scores for each result within a given cluster;

modifying the ordered listing of the clusters by modifying at least one cluster score based on a weighting of clusters associated with at least one concept or contextual data from the search query; and

providing for display at least a portion of some of the modified ordered listing of the clusters.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein displaying at least a portion further comprises including for display at least one advertisement.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein at least one cluster in the ordered listing of clusters includes information selected based on an aggregate analysis of click streams.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein at least one cluster of search results can be expanded or reduced in a number of listed results within the cluster independent of at least one other cluster.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein a first displayed cluster is configured to display more search results than a second displayed cluster to indicate that the first cluster is more relevant to the search query than the second cluster.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the overall score for each cluster is determined using a weighted average based on a cumulative score of relevance scores for each result within a given cluster.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein displaying at least a portion of some of the modified ordered listing of the clusters further comprises displaying the search results within each cluster in a sort order based on a relevance determination within the cluster.