Restricted web search based on user-specified source characteristics

• US 8,868,579 B2
• Filed: 05/14/2012
• Issued: 10/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Exponential Labs, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Exponential Labs, Inc.
• Inventors: Arora, Sanjay
• Primary Examiner(s): Perveen, Rehana
• Assistant Examiner(s): Waldron, Scott A
• Application Number:
  US13/470,806
• Publication Number:
  US 20130304719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 890 Days
• Field of Search: 707/727, 707/754, 707/757, 715/825, 715/845
• US Class Current: 707/757
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

The present invention is a method and system for searching for items on a computer network, such as the internet, based on a query and an exclusion specification comprising a specification of a characteristic of sources of the items, to create a list of identifiers of items relevant to the query that are not excluded by the exclusion specification. Such characteristics include measures of popularity of the sources of the items so that items from sources having popularity greater than the specified popularity may be excluded from the list.

Claims

1. A method performed by a computer processor to identify web pages accessible on a computer network that are relevant to a query entered by a user, each web page having a source being a website identified by a website domain name, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving an exclusion specification from the user, the exclusion specification comprising a specification of at least one characteristic of sources, wherein the at least one characteristic of sources does not include an identifier of a particular web page or an entity, a domain name or a company name, and wherein the at least one characteristic of sources relates to the source per se and is shared by a plurality of sources;

(b) receiving the query from the user;

(c) creating a list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query, wherein the creating a list of identifiers comprises;

(i) identifying an initial list of identifiers of web pages accessible on the computer network, wherein the web pages are accessible on the computer network from the sources that are not excluded by the exclusion specification, wherein the web pages are sorted by declining relevance of the web pages to the query;

(ii) identifying the source of the web page for each listed web page, wherein each source is assigned a rank equal to the number of distinct sources of web pages above the first occurrence of a web page from that source in the initial list;

(iii) removing web page identifiers from the list for which the source of the web page is excluded by the exclusion specification, wherein a first characteristic of sources in the exclusion specification is a specified maximum rank in the initial list, so that all web pages from a source with a rank less than or equal to the specified maximum rank are removed from the list, wherein a second characteristic of sources in the exclusion specification is a maximum value of a quantitative measure of the quality of the sources, a smaller value of which measure means that the source is of higher quality, so that web pages from sources having a quality value less than or equal to the specified maximum value are excluded from the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query; and

(iv) creating a list of sources that were excluded by the exclusion specification;

(d) displaying a portion of the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query starting with the first web page in the list, the first web page being the most relevant web page;

(e) displaying a portion of the list of sources that were excluded by the exclusion specification that was received from the user and used to produce the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query;

(f) receiving from the user an indication that one of the sources in the list of excluded sources should not be excluded;

(g) updating the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query to include web pages from the source that the user indicated should not be excluded; and

(h) displaying a portion of the updated list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the exclusion specification is pre-determined.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a third characteristic of sources in the exclusion specification is a maximum value of a quantitative measure of the popularity of the sources, a smaller value of which measure means that the source is more popular, so that web pages from sources having a popularity value less than or equal to the specified maximum value are excluded from the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified maximum rank is 100,000.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer network is the internet, the identifiers are uniform resource locators, and the sources are identified by extracting domain names from the uniform resource locators.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the relevance of the query to a web page is determined by the appearance in the web page, or in text associated with the web page, of words or phrases contained in the query.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating a list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query is performed by querying a third-party search engine.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable memory that has software instructions stored therein, the software instructions being adapted to run on a computer processor to cause the processor to perform the method of claim 1.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the exclusion specification is provided by the user by selecting a pre-defined exclusion specification presented by a website that implements the method.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the exclusion specification comprises a logical combination of the at least one characteristic of sources.

11. A system comprising a programmable computer processor, the processor running software adapted to:

(a) receive an exclusion specification from the user, the exclusion specification comprising a specification of at least one characteristic of sources, a source being a website identified by a website domain name, wherein the at least one characteristic of sources does not include an identifier of a particular web page or an entity, a domain name or a company name, and wherein the at least one characteristic of sources relates to the source per se and is shared by a plurality of sources;

(b) receive a query from a user;

(c) create a list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query, wherein the creation of the list of identifiers comprises;

(i) identifying an initial list of identifiers of web pages accessible on the computer network, wherein the web pages are accessible on the computer network from the sources that are not excluded by the exclusion specification, wherein the web pages are sorted by declining relevance of the web pages to the query;

(ii) identifying the source of the web page for each listed web page, wherein each source is assigned a rank equal to the number of distinct sources of web pages above the first occurrence of a web page from that source in the initial list;

(iii) removing web page identifiers from the list for which the source of the web page is excluded by the exclusion specification, wherein a first characteristic of sources in the exclusion specification is a specified maximum rank in the initial list, so that all web pages from a source with a rank less than or equal to the specified maximum rank are removed from the list, wherein a second characteristic of sources in the exclusion specification is a maximum value of a quantitative measure of the quality of the sources, a smaller value of which measure means that the source is of higher quality, so that web pages from sources having a quality value less than or equal to the specified maximum value are excluded from the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query; and

(iv) creating a list of sources that were excluded by the exclusion;

(d) display a portion of the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query starting with the first web page in the list, the first web page being the most relevant web page;

(e) display a portion of the list of sources that were excluded by the exclusion specification that was received from the user and used to produce the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query;

(f) receive from the user an indication that one of the sources in the list of excluded sources should not be excluded;

(g) update the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query to include web pages from the source that the user indicated should not be excluded; and

(h) display a portion of the updated list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein a third characteristic of sources in the exclusion specification is a maximum value of a quantitative measure of the popularity of the sources, a smaller value of which measure means that the source is more popular, so that web pages from sources having a popularity value less than or equal to the specified maximum value are excluded from the list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer network is the internet, the identifiers are uniform resource locators, and the sources are identified by extracting domain names from the uniform resource locators.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the exclusion specification is pre-determined.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the specified maximum rank is 100,000.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the relevance of the query to a web page is determined by the appearance in the web page, or in text associated with the web page, of words or phrases contained in the query.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the step of creating a list of identifiers of web pages relevant to the query is performed by querying a third-party search engine.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the exclusion specification is provided by the user by selecting a pre-defined exclusion specification presented by a website that implements the method.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the exclusion specification comprises a logical combination of the at least one characteristic of sources.