Dynamic search interaction

• US 8,880,548 B2
• Filed: 02/17/2010
• Issued: 11/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Ye-Yi, Rounthwaite, Robert L., Imig, Scott K.
• Primary Examiner(s): PEACH, POLINA G
• Application Number:
  US12/706,719
• Publication Number:
  US 20110202533A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,721 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/767
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

This patent application pertains to dynamic search interaction. One example includes an organizational component configured to obtain a search query from a user. The organizational component can also be configured to obtain related search queries. The organizational component can further be configured to organize the related search queries by topic and to estimate a relative likelihood that an intent of the user matches an individual topic. This example also includes an image generation component configured to cause the organized related search queries to be presented on a graphical user interface (GUI) in a manner that reflects the relative likelihood.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a hardware processor; and

hardware storage storing computer-readable instructions which, when executed by the hardware processor, cause the hardware processor to;

obtain an input search query from a user, the input search query comprising an input search term,

identify instances where other users have used the input search term in other search queries and added additional search terms to the other search queries to obtain refined search queries, wherein the refined search queries were previously entered by the other users,

organize the refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users into at least multiple first refined search queries associated with a first topic and multiple second refined search queries associated with a second topic,

estimate a first relative likelihood that an intent of the user matches the first topic,

estimate a second relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the second topic, the first relative likelihood being greater than the second relative likelihood,

cause the multiple first related refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users to be displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI) concurrently with the multiple second refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users, the multiple first refined search queries being displayed relatively more prominently than the multiple second refined search queries to show that the first relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the first topic is greater than the second relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the second topic, and

responsive to a scrolling action of a user input device, display additional first refined search queries associated with the first topic on the GUI while continuing to display the multiple second refined search queries associated with the second topic, wherein the additional first refined search queries were also previously entered by the other users by adding further additional search terms to the input search term.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-readable instructions further cause the hardware processor to:

refine one or more of the first relative likelihood or the second relative likelihood based upon subsequent user input so that the second relative likelihood is greater than the first relative likelihood, and dynamically update the GUI so that the multiple second refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users are displayed relatively more prominently than the multiple first refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users to show that the second relative likelihood is greater than the first relative likelihood.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-readable instructions further cause the hardware processor to:

responsive to a hovering action of the user input device over the multiple first refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users, zoom in on the multiple first refined search queries.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the scrolling action occurs after the hovering action.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the user input device is a mouse that performs the hovering action, the mouse having a scroll wheel that performs the scrolling action.

6. A method performed by at least one computing device, the method comprising:

obtaining an input search query from a user, the input search query comprising an input search term;

identifying instances where other users have used the input search term in other search queries and added additional search terms to the other search queries to obtain refined search queries, wherein the refined search queries were previously entered by the other users;

organizing the refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users into at least multiple first refined search queries associated with a first topic and multiple second refined search queries associated with a second topic;

estimating a first relative likelihood that an intent of the user matches the first topic;

estimating a second relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the second topic, the first relative likelihood being greater than the second relative likelihood; and

causing the multiple first refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users to be displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI) concurrently with the multiple second refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users, the multiple first refined search queries being displayed relatively more prominently than the multiple second refined search queries to show that the first relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the first topic is greater than the second relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the second topic.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the estimating the first relative likelihood comprises tracking first instances where the multiple first refined search queries were used as first final queries by the other users to culminate corresponding first searches; and

the estimating the second relative likelihood comprises tracking second instances where the multiple second refined search queries were used as second final queries by the other users to culminate corresponding second searches.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

reducing the first relative likelihood responsive to a determination that the user does not frequently access web sites associated with the first topic.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying the instances where other users have used the input search term in other queries comprises evaluating one or more query logs.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein organizing the refined search queries comprises consulting a disambiguation reference to determine that a particular first refined search query is associated with the first topic and that a particular second refined search query is associated with the second topic.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

determining that other first refined search queries and other second refined search queries do not have readily discernable topics using the disambiguation reference;

comparing first distributions of first clicked resource locators for the other first refined search queries to a corresponding first distribution of the particular first refined search query to determine that the other first refined search queries match the first topic; and

comparing second distributions of second clicked resource locators for the other second refined search queries to a corresponding second distribution of the particular second refined search query to determine that the other second refined search queries match the second topic.

12. A hardware computer-readable storage media having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform acts comprising:

obtaining an input search query from a user, the input search query comprising an input search term;

identifying instances where other users have used the input search term as an initial search query and added additional search terms to the initial search query to obtain refined search queries, wherein the initial search query and the refined search queries were previously entered by the other users;

organizing the refined search queries that were previously entered by the other users into at least multiple first refined search queries that were entered by first other users and that are associated with a first topic and multiple second refined search queries that were entered by second other users and that are associated with a second topic;

estimating a first relative likelihood that an intent of the user matches the first topic;

estimating a second relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the second topic, the first relative likelihood being greater than the second relative likelihood; and

causing the multiple first refined search queries that were previously entered by the first other users to be displayed on a graphical user interface (GUI) concurrently with the multiple second refined search queries that were previously entered by the second other users, the displayed GUI indicating that the first relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the first topic is greater than the second relative likelihood that the intent of the user matches the second topic.

13. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 12, the acts further comprising:

identifying a first seed query associated with the first topic and a second seed query associated with the second topic;

comparing the refined search queries to the first seed query to identify the multiple first refined search queries associated with the first topic; and

comparing the refined search queries to the second seed query to identify the multiple second refined search queries associated with the second topic.

14. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein:

comparing the refined search queries to the first seed query comprises employing a click graph to determine first similarities between the multiple first refined search queries and the first seed query, and

comparing the refined search queries to the second seed query comprises employing the click graph to determine second similarities between the multiple second refined search queries and the second seed query.

15. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 12, the acts further comprising:

detecting a scrolling input while the multiple first refined search queries that were entered by the first other users and the multiple second refined search queries that were entered by the second other users are concurrently displayed on the GUI; and

responsive to the scrolling input, displaying additional first refined search queries that were also entered by the first other users while continuing to display both the multiple first refined search queries and the multiple second refined search queries.

16. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 15, the acts further comprising:

detecting a mouse input indicating that the multiple first refined search queries are in focus; and

displaying the additional first refined search queries when the multiple first refined search queries are in focus and the scrolling input is detected.

17. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 16, the acts further comprising:

detecting another mouse input indicating that the multiple second refined search queries are in focus and that the multiple first refined search queries are no longer in focus;

detecting another scrolling input while the multiple first refined search queries and the multiple second refined search queries are concurrently displayed on the GUI; and

responsive to the another scrolling input, displaying additional second refined search queries while continuing to display both the multiple first refined search queries and the multiple second refined search queries.

18. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 12, the acts further comprising:

identifying multiple final queries that the other users entered by further refining the initial search query, wherein the multiple first refined search queries include first final queries from the multiple final queries and the multiple second refined search queries include second final queries from the multiple final queries.

19. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 12, wherein estimating the first relative likelihood comprises counting numbers of visits to various webpages related to the first topic.

20. The hardware computer-readable storage media of claim 12, wherein organizing the refined search queries comprises:

comparing the refined search queries to a first definition for the input search term to identify the multiple first refined search queries; and

comparing the refined search queries to a second definition for the input search term to identify the multiple second refined search queries.