Search over structured data

• US 8,762,372 B2
• Filed: 04/22/2011
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Reddy, Bindu, Brunsman, Lawrence J., Mosberger, Ning, Bhaya, Gaurav Ravindra, Sirajuddin, Sarah, Kale, David, Kozenski, Jennifer L., Sundararajan, Arvind, Agarwal, Puneet
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu
• Assistant Examiner(s): BIBBEE, JARED M
• Application Number:
  US13/092,203
• Publication Number:
  US 20110202517A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,159 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/736, 707/748, 707/750, 707/732, 707/754
• US Class Current: 707/732
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/164 File meta data generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• 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 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation

Abstract

A user can refine a search over structured data by specifying that a label or an attribute value be used to further filter the results of a query.

Claims

1. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a non-transitory machine-readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions that, when read by one or more computers, operate to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

receiving a search query;

selecting two or more data items from a collection of data items, the two or more data items satisfying the received search query, and the two or more data items collectively having associated with them attributes;

determining, for each attribute, a frequency with which the attribute has previously been used by multiple users of a search engine to refine search queries;

selecting a subset of the attributes which have a highest respective frequency;

providing to a client device a search engine results page that includes a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items, and a respective representation of each of the attributes in the subset and of no other attributes; and

providing to the client device, in response to a selection of a representation included in the search engine results page, a control for display on the search engine results page, the control for receiving a query refinement in the form of a value for the attribute represented by the selected representation.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise:

receiving the query refinement from the client device; and

providing to the client device a second search engine results page comprising a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items that satisfy the query refinement.

3. A system comprising:

one or more computers; and

a computer-readable medium coupled to the one or more computers having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving a search query;

selecting two or more data items from a collection of data items, the two or more data items satisfying the received search query, and the two or more data items collectively having associated with them attributes;

determining, for each attribute, a frequency with which the attribute has previously been used by multiple users of a search engine to refine search queries;

selecting a subset of the attributes which have a highest respective frequency;

providing to a client device a search engine results page that includes a respective reference to each of two or more of the data items, and a respective representation of each of the attributes in the subset and of no other attributes; and

providing to the client device, in response to a selection of a representation included in the search engine results page, a control for display on the search engine results page, the control for receiving a query refinement in the form of a value for the attribute represented by the selected representation.