Using anchor text to provide context

• US 8,458,207 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2006
• Issued: 06/04/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Kumar, Girish, Sareen, Gaurav, Gupta, Namita, Wang, Junhua, Clark, Charles Lester Alexander
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Jung
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wilcox, James J
• Application Number:
  US11/522,227
• Publication Number:
  US 20080071739A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,454 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A search engine can provide referencing information as context for a particular search result when an excerpt from the search result, comprising at least some similar elements to the user'"'"'s query, is not generated. Referencing information can include one or more anchor texts having similarity to at least some elements of the user'"'"'s query, the anchor texts being used by referencing pages to link to the page returned as a search result. User selection of the anchor text can enable the user to visit a referencing page using that anchor text to link to the page returned as a search result, and having a high static rank.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media, the one or more computer-readable media not consisting of a propagating signal, the one or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for providing search results, the computer-executable instructions directed to steps comprising:

receiving, by a search engine, a search string comprising search terms;

identifying pages relevant to the search string;

for each of the identified pages relevant to the search string;

obtaining a snippet for the corresponding identified page, the snippet is an excerpt from the corresponding identified page, the snippet, generated by searching a database, illustrates relevance of the corresponding identified page to the search string;

determining that the snippet does not contain search terms of the search string, obtaining reference information comprising first anchor text of a link to the corresponding identified page from a web page other than the corresponding identified page, the first anchor text is used by the web page other than the corresponding identified page to reference the corresponding identified page; and

displaying links to each identified page with the snippet and the obtained reference information for the identified page, wherein the reference information further comprises a second anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the identified pages, wherein the second anchor text is different from the first anchor text, and wherein the second anchor text is relevant to the search string.

2. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the referencing information further comprises a link to at least one referencing page using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

3. The computer-readable media of claim 2 comprising further computer-executable instructions directed to selecting the at least one referencing page based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

4. The computer-readable media of claim 1 comprising further computer-executable instructions directed to selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the first anchor text and the search string.

5. The computer-readable media of claim 1 comprising further computer-executable instructions directed to selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

6. The computer-readable media of claim 1 comprising further computer-executable instructions directed to selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the search string and a combination of elements present in the at least one of the identified pages and elements present in the first anchor text.

7. The computer-readable media of claim 1 comprising further computer-executable instructions directed to providing a query-independent snippet for the at least one of the identified pages if the at least one of the identified pages does not comprise elements contained in the search string in a snippetizable format, wherein the query-independent snippet identifies the at least one of the identified pages.

8. A method of delivering search results comprising:

using a computing device, receiving, by a search engine, a search string comprising search terms;

using the computing device, identifying pages relevant to the search string;

using the computing device, for each of the identified pages relevant to the search string;

obtaining a snippet for the corresponding identified page, the snippet is an excerpt from the corresponding identified page, the snippet, generated by searching a database, illustrates relevance of the corresponding identified page to the search string;

determining that the snippet does not contain search terms of the search string, obtaining reference information comprising first anchor text of a link to the corresponding identified page from a web page other than the corresponding identified page, the first anchor text is used by the web page other than the corresponding identified page to reference the corresponding identified page; and

displaying links to each identified page with the snippet and the obtained reference information for the identified page, wherein the reference information further comprises a second anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the identified pages, wherein the second anchor text is different from the first anchor text, and wherein the second anchor text is relevant to the search string.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the referencing information further comprises a link to at least one referencing page using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising selecting the at least one referencing page based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

11. The method of claim 8 further comprising selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the first anchor text and the search string.

12. The method of claim 8 further comprising selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

13. The method of claim 8 further comprising selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the search string and a combination of elements present in the at least one of the identified pages and elements present in the first anchor text.

14. The method of claim 8 further comprising providing a query-independent snippet for the at least one of the identified pages if the at least one of the identified pages does not comprise elements contained in the search string in a snippetizable format, wherein the query-independent snippet identifies the at least one of the identified pages.

15. A system for providing search results, the system comprising:

a computing device coupled to a memory, the memory storing computer-executable instructions to;

receive, by a search engine, a search string comprising search;

identify pages relevant to the search string;

for each of the identified pages relevant to the search string;

obtain a snippet for the corresponding identified page, the snippet is an excerpt from the corresponding identified page, the snippet, generated by searching a database, illustrates relevance of the corresponding identified page to the search string;

determine that the snippet does not contain search terms of the search string, obtaining reference information comprising first anchor text of a link to the corresponding identified page from a web page other than the corresponding identified page, the first anchor text is used by the web page other than the corresponding identified page to reference the corresponding identified page; and

display links to each identified page with the snippet and the obtained reference information for the identified page, wherein the reference information further comprises a second anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the identified pages, wherein the second anchor text is different from the first anchor text, and wherein the second anchor text is relevant to the search string.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the referencing information further comprises a link to at least one referencing page using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

17. The system of claim 16, the memory further storing computer-executable instructions to select the at least one referencing page based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

18. The system of claim 15, the memory further storing computer-executable instructions to select the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the first anchor text and the search string.

19. The system of claim 15, the memory further storing computer-executable instructions to select the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages.

20. The system of claim 15, the memory further storing computer-executable instructions to select the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the search string and a combination of elements present in the at least one of the identified pages and elements present in the first anchor text.