System and method for geographically classifying business on the world-wide web

• US 9,183,300 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2012
• Issued: 11/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Virdy, Ajaipal Singh
• Primary Examiner(s): Chbouki, Tarek
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tamaru, Michael K
• Application Number:
  US13/620,916
• Publication Number:
  US 20130173630A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,151 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2228 Indexing structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/355 Class or cluster creation or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A method and search engine for classifying a source publishing a document on a portion of a network, includes steps of electronically receiving a document, based on the document, determining a source which published the document, and assigning a code to the document based on whether data associated with the document published by the source matches with data contained in a database. An intelligent geographic- and business topic-specific resource discovery system facilitates local commerce on the World-Wide Web and also reduces search time by accurately isolating information for end-users. Distinguishing and classifying business pages on the Web by business categories using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes is achieved through an automatic iterative process.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

traversing, by an indexer robot, one or more URLs to identify content associated with the one or more of URLs;

storing, within a URL index, the one or more URLs and the identified content, wherein the identified content is associated within the URL index with the one or more URLs;

utilizing, by the indexer robot, the identified content to query a first third-party database for address information associated with the one or more URLs;

storing, within the URL index, the address information from the first third-party database, in association with the one or more URLs;

utilizing, by the indexer robot, the address information to query a second third-party database for a company name associated with the address information; and

maintaining the company name in the URL index in association with the address information and the one or more URLs when the company name from the second third-party database matches a company name identified from the indexer robot traversing the one or more URLs.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising extracting one or more domain names from the one or more URLs in the URL index.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first third-party database includes domain names associated with the address information.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein utilizing the identified content to query the first third-party database comprises using the extracted one or more domain names to query the first third-party database.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the address information associated with the one or more URLs comprises company name information.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the second third-party database comprises a listing of company names associated with address information.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising utilizing the address information to identify one or more additional geographic locations associated with the one or more URLs.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a query comprising a geographic location component.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising querying the one or more geographic locations associated with the one or more URLs within the URL index using the geographic location component.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising identifying one or more resultant URLs having geographic locations that are associated with the geographic location component of the received query.

11. A method comprising:

generating a URL index comprising a plurality of URLs;

comparing, by an indexer robot, the URL index to a third-party database to identify one or more common URLs between the URL index and the third-party database;

querying, by the indexer robot, the third-party database for information associated with the one or more common URLs;

receiving, by the indexer robot, from the third-party database, information in response to the query;

storing, within the URL index, the information in association with the one or more common URLs;

receiving a query comprising a geographic location component comprising at least one of a zip code or a phone number area code;

generating a result of one or more URLs from the URL index matching the received query; and

outputting the result.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising querying the URL index using the geographic location component.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising identifying one or more resultant URLs having geographic locations that are associated with the geographic location component of the received query.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the information associated with the one or more common URLs comprises city name information.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the information associated with the one or more common URLs comprises zip code information.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the information associated with the one or more common URLs comprises phone number area code information.

17. A system comprising:

at least one processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to;

generate a URL index comprising one or more URLs;

extract, by an indexer robot, a domain name for each of the one or more URLs;

query, by the indexer robot, a third-party database for additional information associated with each domain name;

receive, by the indexer robot, from the third-party database, additional information in response to the query;

store, within the URL index, the additional information in association with the one or more URLs;

receive a query comprising a geographic location component comprising at least one of a zip code or a phone number area code;

generate a result of one or more URLs from the URL index matching the received query; and

output the result.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the system to associates a geographic location with each domain name.

19. The system of claim 17, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the system to identify at least one resultant URL associated with a geographic location that matches the geographic location component.