Search query reformulation using result term occurrence count

• US 8,849,785 B1
• Filed: 01/15/2010
• Issued: 09/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Shattuck, Scott Hamilton
• Primary Examiner(s): Girma, Anteneh
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le, Jessica N
• Application Number:
  US12/688,006
• Time in Patent Office: 1,719 Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3325 Reformulation based on results of preceding query
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for processing voice commands. In one aspect, a method includes obtaining an occurrence count for terms that occur in resources that a search engine has identified as being responsive to an original search query, identifying a term that occurs in the resources, based on the occurrence count, providing the term and a control for display on a client device, the control being associated with the term and with promotion or demotion criteria, receiving a signal indicating that the user has selected the control, and automatically reformulating the original search query based on the term and the promotion or demotion criteria.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

obtaining search results that are identified as responsive to an original search query;

determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in text associated with one or more of the search results;

determining a frequency with which the particular term occurs in other text;

determining that the frequency with which the particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more search results differs, by a threshold extent, from the frequency with which the particular term occurs in the other text;

in response to determining that the frequency with which the particular term occurs in a text associated with the one or more search results differs, by the threshold extent, from the frequency with which the term occurs in the other text, providing, for display, a representation of the particular term, a demote control to specify that the search results for the reformulated search query that include the particular term are to be demoted, and a promote control to specify that the search results for the formulated search query that include the particular term are to be promoted;

receiving data indicative of a selection of the demote control or the promote control; and

in response to receiving the data indicative of the selection of the demote control or the promote control, reformulating the original search query to promote or demote the particular term.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining the frequency of the particular term based on an occurrence count.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining the frequency of the particular term based on an occurrence count, and the particular term not being a stop word.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining that the particular term occurs in the text more than a predetermined quantity of times.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining that the particular term is one of an N most frequently occurring terms, N being a positive integer.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with one or more of the search results is obtained by the search engine after executing the original search query.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with one or more of the search results is obtained by a client device after identifying the search results that satisfy the original search query.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein obtaining the occurrence count further comprises:

selecting all search results that satisfy the search query, a top N ranked search results that satisfy the original search query, N being a positive integer,

counting the terms that occur in the selected search results.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating a global frequency for the terms that occur in all search results of a particular language indexed by a search engine.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the particular term, the promote control, the demote control, and information identifying both the frequency in which the particular term occurs in the search results, and the frequency in which the particular term occurs in the search results of the particular language.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the promotion criteria specifies that search results for the reformulated search query that include the particular term are to be promoted, or that the search results for the reformulated search query are required to include the particular term.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the demotion criteria specifies that search results for the reformulated search query that include the particular term are to be demoted, or that the search results for the reformulated search query are required to not include the particular term.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein reformulating the original search query further comprises adding the particular term to the original search query.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the demote control or the promote control comprises a checkbox, a button, or a hyperlink.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining that the particular term occurs more than a predetermined number of times in the search results, or is one of an N most frequently occurring terms in the search results, N being a positive integer.

16. A system comprising:

one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

obtaining search results that are identified as responsive to an original search query;

determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in text associated with one or more of the search results;

determining a frequency with which the particular term occurs in other text;

determining that the frequency with which the particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more search results differs, by a threshold extent, from the frequency with which the particular term occurs in the other text;

in response to determining that the frequency with which the particular term occurs in a text associated with the one or more search results differs, by the threshold extent, from the frequency with which the term occurs in the other text, providing, for display, a representation of the particular term, a demote control to specify that the search results for the reformulated search query that include the particular term are to be demoted, and a promote control to specify that the search results for the formulated search query that include the particular term are to be promoted;

receiving data indicative of a selection of the demote control or the promote control; and

in response to receiving the data indicative of the selection of the demote control or the promote control, reformulating the original search query to promote or demote the particular term.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining the frequency of the particular term based on an occurrence count.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining the frequency of the particular term based on an occurrence count, and the particular term not being a stop word.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining that the particular term occurs in the text more than a predetermined quantity of times.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more of the search results comprises determining that the particular term is one of an N most frequently occurring terms, N being a positive integer.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the frequency with which a particular term occurs in the text associated with one or more of the search results is obtained by the search engine after executing the original search query.

22. A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

obtaining search results that are identified as responsive to an original search query;

determining a frequency with which a particular term occurs in text associated with one or more of the search results;

determining a frequency with which the particular term occurs in other text;

determining that the frequency with which the particular term occurs in the text associated with the one or more search results differs, by a threshold extent, from the frequency with which the particular term occurs in the other text;

in response to determining that the frequency with which the particular term occurs in a text associated with the one or more search results differs, by the threshold extent, from the frequency with which the term occurs in the other text, providing, for display, a representation of the particular term, a demote control to specify that the search results for the reformulated search query that include the particular term are to be demoted, and a promote control to specify that the search results for the formulated search query that include the particular term are to be promoted;

receiving data indicative of a selection of the demote control or the promote control; and

in response to receiving the data indicative of the selection of the demote control or the promote control, reformulating the original search query to promote or demote the particular term.