Remote browsing and searching

• US 8,839,087 B1
• Filed: 01/26/2012
• Issued: 09/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hayden, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): RIES, LAURIE ANNE
• Application Number:
  US13/359,051
• Time in Patent Office: 964 Days
• Field of Search: 715/242, 715/255, 715/204
• US Class Current: 715/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/244 Grouping and aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/197 Version control for software G06F8/71

Abstract

A remote browsing and searching process is directed to the generation and management of a remote browse session at a network computing provider. Responsive to a search request, the network computing provider provides search results corresponding to historical content representations associated with content previously requested by the client computing device, or search results corresponding to content representations associated with current content, or to both. The network computing and storage provider may determine the search results based on a navigation path associated with a previous request for content, based on navigation paths of other client computing devices, based on relationships or differences between various versions of content, or based on any number of other factors. Interactive displays may be provided to client computing devices, allowing a user to refine the search results, zoom and manipulate content representations, and view relationships, similarities, and differences in content representations.

Claims

1. A system for presenting web page search results, the system comprising:

a network computing provider in communication with a client computing device, the network computing provider comprising a network computing component executing on one or more physical network computing devices, wherein each physical network computing device comprises hardware configurable to execute specific computing instructions, the network computing component configured to;

retrieve a plurality of web pages satisfying a search request received from the client computing device;

identify a subgroup within the plurality of web pages by an additional search criterion, wherein the additional search criterion represents a relation between at least two of the plurality of web pages;

cause display of a plurality of graphic objects, each of the plurality of graphic objects comprising a graphical representation of a corresponding one of the plurality of web pages satisfying the search request; and

cause display of a visual indicator representing the additional search criterion relating to the subgroup, in association with graphic objects of the at least two of the plurality of web pages.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of graphics processing to generate the display is performed at the network computing component.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the relation represented by the subgroup comprises at least one of a common subject matter, browsing history association, or social media association.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the visual indicator of the subgroup comprises at least one of highlighting, underlining, outlining, altering an original color of a web page represented by a graphic object, or grouping the at least two of the plurality of graphic objects together.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein graphic objects representing the at least two web pages associated with the same subgroup are caused to be displayed with a visual connection between them.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the search terms comprise at least one of a word, date, category, or user identifier.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of web pages comprises web pages requested by the client computing device at a previous time.

8. A computer-implemented method for presenting network resource search results, the method comprising:

under the control of a network computing component executing on one or more physical computing components of a network computing provider, the physical computing components configured to execute specific instructions,

retrieving a plurality of network resources satisfying a search request;

identifying a subgroup within the retrieved plurality of network resources by an additional search criterion;

causing display of at least two graphic objects, wherein each of the at least two graphic objects comprises a graphical representation of a network resource of the plurality of network resources; and

causing display of a visual indicator representing the additional search criterion in association with the at least two graphic objects corresponding to network resources associated with the subgroup.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of network resources comprises at least one of a web page, image, video, animation, applet, or document.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of network resources are selected for retrieval to satisfy the search request received from a client computing device, the first search request comprising one or more search terms.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the one or more search terms of the search request comprise at least one of a word, date, category, or user identifier.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 10,

wherein the additional search criterion includes one or more refinement search terms and the network resources associated with the subgroup are satisfying both the search request and the additional search criterion.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein graphic objects corresponding to network resources satisfying the search request and not satisfying the additional search criterion are caused to be animated out of the display.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein a subgroup represents at least one of a subject matter, browsing history association, or social media association.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the at least two graphic objects representing network resources associated with the subgroup are caused to be displayed with a visual connection between them.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein data is displayed adjacent to the visual connection, the data corresponding to a property of the subgroup.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein a plurality of visual connections are caused to be displayed, and wherein at least two of the plurality of visual connections are caused to be displayed with different colors.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the at least two graphic objects are caused to be displayed separately in at least two separate portions of a video display, and wherein each of the at least two graphic objects is displayed in one of the at least two separate portions based on the subgroup associated with the corresponding network resource.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of network resources comprises network resources requested by a client computing device at previous times, and wherein at least one of the corresponding graphic objects caused to be displayed comprises a graphical representation of the network resource as it existed when the network resource was requested by the client computing device at a previous time.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of network resources comprises network resources requested by a plurality of client computing devices at previous times, and wherein at least one of the corresponding graphic objects caused to be displayed comprises a graphical representation of the network resource as it existed when the network resource was requested by one of the plurality of client computing devices at a previous time.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of network resources comprises network resources retrieved by the network computing component at previous times, and wherein at least one of the corresponding graphic objects caused to be displayed comprises a graphical representation of the network resource as it existed when the network resource was retrieved by the network computing component at a previous time.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising causing display of at least one previous version of a network resource when graphic object representing the network resource is selected by a user of a client computing device.

23. A computer-implemented method for presenting network resource search results, the method comprising:

under the control of a network computing component executing on one or more physical computing components of a network computing provider, the physical computing components configured to execute specific instructions,

retrieving a plurality of network resources, the plurality of network resources satisfying a search request from a client computing device;

identifying at least one subgroup, within the plurality of network resources, associated with a common property of at least two of the plurality of network resources; and

generating a visual indicator of the at least one subgroup, the visual indicator represents the common property of the at least two of the plurality of network resources and is displayed in association with graphical representations of the at least two of the plurality of network resources.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, wherein the at least one subgroup comprises one of a subject matter, visual content, browsing history association, social media association, or source common to at least two of the plurality of network resources.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, wherein determining at least one subgroup comprises comparing at least two of the plurality of network resources to detect the common property.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, wherein determining at least one subgroup comprises obtaining data identifying the at least one common property.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, wherein generating the visual indicator comprises altering a graphical representation of a network resource to include the visual indicator when displayed.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 27, wherein the visual indicator comprises at least one of highlighting, underlining, outlining, or altering an original color of a graphical representation of the network resource.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 23, further comprising causing display of the graphical representations of the at least two of the plurality of network resources and the at least one visual indicator.

30. The computer-implemented method of claim 29, wherein generating the visual indicator comprises grouping together the graphical representations of the at least two of the plurality of network resources.