Predicting user navigation events within a browser

• US 9,075,778 B1
• Filed: 04/11/2014
• Issued: 07/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Hamon, Dominic
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEN, ALAN S
• Application Number:
  US14/250,558
• Time in Patent Office: 452 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks

Abstract

A method and system for predicting a next navigation event are described. Aspects of the disclosure minimize the delay between a navigation event and a network response by predicting the next navigation event. The system and method may then prerender content associated with the next navigation event. For example, the method and system may predict a likely next uniform resource locator during web browsing to preemptively request content from the network before the user selects the corresponding link on a web page. The methods describe a variety of manners of predicting the next navigation event, including examining individual and aggregate historical data, text entry prediction, and cursor input monitoring.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for predicting a user navigation event, the method comprising:

rendering a web page in a web browser;

identifying, using a processor, one or more hyperlinks within the web page;

determining, using the processor, a probability value representing a probability of selection of each of the one or more hyperlinks using a navigation history, the navigation history comprising a map indexed by one or more source addresses, the one or more source addresses being mapped to one or more destination addresses, each destination address being associated with a frequency value indicating a number of visits to the destination address from an associated source address of the one or more source addresses, wherein the probability value is determined by dividing the frequency of a particular destination URL from a particular source URL by the frequency of all navigation events from the particular source URL; and

prerendering a hyperlink with the highest probability value.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a user navigation event within the web browser; and

in response to the user navigation event, storing an address of the web page and a destination address associated with the navigation event in the navigation history.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising prerendering each hyperlink with a probability value greater than a threshold probability value.

4. A processing system for accessing network content, the processing system comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory, coupled to the at least one processor, for storing a navigation history comprising a map indexed by one or more source addresses, the one or more source addresses being mapped to one or more destination addresses, each destination address being associated with a frequency value indicating a number of visits to the destination address from an associated source address;

the at least one processor being configured to;

render a web page in a web browser;

identify one or more hyperlinks within the web page;

determine a probability value representing a probability of selection of each of the one or more hyperlinks using the navigation history, wherein the probability value is determined by dividing the frequency of a particular destination URL from a particular source URL by the frequency of all navigation events from the particular source URL; and

prerender a hyperlink with the highest probability value.

5. The processing system of claim 4, wherein the processor is further configured to:

identify a user navigation event within the web browser; and

in response to the navigation event, store an address of the web page and a destination address associated with the navigation event in the navigation history.

6. The processing system of claim 4, wherein the processor is further configured to prerender each hyperlink with a probability value greater than a threshold probability value.