Suggesting alternative query phrases in query results

• US 9,183,323 B1
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Issued: 11/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Shaw, Hayden
• Primary Examiner(s): Jacob, Ajith
• Application Number:
  US12/163,925
• Time in Patent Office: 2,692 Days
• Field of Search: 707/766
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3325 Reformulation based on results of preceding query
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90324 using system suggestions

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for suggesting alternative query phrases based on query search results. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a search result for a query, the search result comprising a link to a resource, the resource including text, analyzing the text of the resource to identify a suggested query phrase in the text of the resource using a computed similarity measure, the similarity measure being a measure of similarity between the query and the suggested query phrase, the suggested query phrase being a phrase in the resource determined to be similar to the query and not identical to the query, and providing the search result, the suggested query phrase, and a user interface object for presentation to a user, the suggested query phrase and the user interface object provided in context in a section of contiguous text from the resource.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a search query;

obtaining one or more search results responsive to the search query, wherein a first search result of the one or more search results identifies a resource including text;

computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each of a plurality of contiguous portions of text of the resource;

selecting a suggested query phrase from a first contiguous portion of text of the resource having a highest computed similarity measure with the search query;

generating a first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results, wherein the first search result snippet presented as part of the first search result includes the suggested query phrase as a selectable user interface element for a user to submit the suggested query phrase as a new search query; and

providing the presentation of the one or more search results, including the first search result snippet as part of the first search result, in response to the search query.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in the presentation of the one or more search results comprises visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the first search result snippet.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the first search result snippet comprises bolding, highlighting, or underlining the suggested query phrase in the first search result snippet.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions,

wherein selecting the suggested query phrase from text of the resource comprises selecting the suggested query phrase from text of the resource in response to determining that the query satisfies the one or more conditions.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions comprises:

providing the query as input to a natural language parser; and

determining from output of the natural language parser that the query has a natural language structure.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions comprises:

determining a number of terms in the query; and

determining that the number of terms in the query exceeds a predetermined value.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each of a plurality of contiguous sections of text of the resource comprises:

identifying a plurality of clauses in the text of the resource; and

computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each clause in the plurality of clauses.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each of a plurality of contiguous sections of text of the resource comprises:

identifying a plurality of sentences in the text of the resource; and

computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each sentence in the plurality of sentences.

9. The method of claim 1, in which the user interface element is one of a hyperlink, a button, or a check box.

10. The method of claim 1, in which the resource is a PDF document, an HTML document, an XML document, a word processing document, or a plain text document.

29. The method of claim 1, wherein computing a similarity measure between the search query and each of the plurality of contiguous portions of text of the resource comprises:

identifying one or more linguistic relations between two or more terms in the query and two or more terms in the contiguous portion of text; and

computing the similarity measure based on the linguistic relations between the two or more terms in the query and the two or more terms in the contiguous portion of text.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein computing a similarity measure between the search query and each of the plurality of contiguous portions of text of the resource comprises:

evaluating occurrences of n-gram sequences in the query and n-gram sequences in the contiguous portion of text; and

computing the similarity measure based on the occurrences of n-gram sequences in the query and n-gram sequences in the contiguous portion of text.

11. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a query;

obtaining one or more search results responsive to the query, wherein each search result identifies a respective resource,

each respective resource including text;

processing each of the one or more search results, including;

identifying a plurality of clauses in the text of a respective resource identified by the search result, and

calculating a similarity measure for each clause in the plurality of clauses, the similarity measure for a clause being a measure of the similarity between the clause and the query;

determining that a first clause within a first resource identified by a first search result of the one or more search results has a similarity measure with the query that satisfies a threshold;

in response to determining that a first clause within a first resource identified by a first search result of the one or more search results has a similarity measure with the query that satisfies a threshold, selecting the first clause as a suggested query phrase for the query;

generating a search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results, wherein the search result snippet includes the suggested query phrase as a selectable user interface element within the selected contiguous portion of the text of the resource, wherein user selection of the suggested query phrase within the search result snippet invokes the suggested query phrase as a new query; and

providing the presentation of the one or more search results, including the search result snippet as part of the first search result, in response to the query.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions, wherein processing each of the one or more search results comprises processing each of the one or more search results in response to determining that the query satisfies the one or more conditions.

13. The method of claim 12, in which determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions further comprises:

determining a number of terms in the query; and

determining that the number of terms in the query exceeds a predetermined value.

14. The method of claim 12, in which determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions further comprises:

determining that the query has a natural language structure.

15. The method of claim 11, in which identifying the plurality of clauses in the text of the respective resource further comprises:

identifying one or more of capitalization, abbreviation, or lexical features in the respective resource.

16. The method of claim 11, in which calculating the similarity measure for a clause in the plurality of clauses further comprises:

calculating the similarity measure using a function that weights a word in the query that is missing from the clause differently from a word in the clause that is missing from the query.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

adjusting a ranking of the one or more search results according to respective similarity measures of clauses identified as suggested query phrases.

18. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a search query;

obtaining one or more search results responsive to the search query, wherein a first search result of the one or more search results identifies a resource including text;

analyzing the text of the resource to identify a contiguous portion of text of the resource using a computed histogram of words in the text of the resource, the contiguous portion of text being a phrase in the resource characteristic of the resource and not identical to the query;

selecting a suggested query phrase from the contiguous portion of the text of the resource;

generating a first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results, wherein the first search result snippet presented as part of the first search result includes the suggested query phrase as a selectable user interface element for a user to submit the suggested query phrase as a new search query; and

providing the presentation of the one or more a plurality of search results, including the first search result snippet as part of the first search result, in response to the search query.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein generating the first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in the presentation of the one or more search results comprises visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the first search result snippet.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions that indicate that identifying a suggested query phrase would be beneficial, wherein computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each of a plurality of contiguous portions of text of the resource comprises computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each of a plurality of contiguous portions of text of the resource in response to determining that the query satisfies one or more conditions that indicate that identifying a suggested query phrase would be beneficial.

21. 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, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving a search query;

obtaining one or more search results responsive to the search query, wherein a first search result of the one or more search results identifies a resource including text;

computing a respective similarity measure between the search query and each of a plurality of contiguous portions of text of the resource;

selecting a suggested query phrase from a first contiguous portion of text of the resource having a highest computed similarity measure with the search query;

generating a first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results, wherein the first search result snippet presented as part of the first search result includes the suggested query phrase as a selectable user interface element for a user to submit the suggested query phrase as a new search query; and

providing the presentation of the one or more search results, including the first search result snippet as part of the first search result, in response to the search query.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein generating the first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in the presentation of the one or more search results comprises visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the first search result snippet.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the first search result snippet comprises bolding, highlighting, or underlining the suggested query phrase in the first search result snippet.

24. 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, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving a query;

obtaining one or more search results responsive to the query, wherein each search result identifies a respective resource, each respective resource including text;

processing each of the one or more search results, including;

identifying a plurality of clauses in text of a respective resource identified by the search result, and

calculating a similarity measure for each clause in the plurality of clauses, the similarity measure for a clause being a measure of the similarity between the clause and the query;

determining that a first clause within a first resource identified by a first search result of the one or more search results has a if the similarity measure with the query that satisfies a threshold;

in response to determining that a first clause within a first resource identified by a first search result of the one or more search results has a similarity measure with the query that satisfies a threshold, selecting the first clause as a suggested query phrase for the query;

generating a search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results, wherein the search result snippet includes the suggested query phrase as a selectable user interface element within the selected contiguous portion of the text of the resource, wherein user selection of the suggested query phrase within the search result snippet invokes the suggested query phrase as a new query; and

providing the presentation of the one or more search results, including the search result snippet as part of the first search result, in response to the query.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein generating the search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results comprises visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the search result snippet.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the search result snippet comprises bolding, highlighting, or underlining the suggested query phrase in the search result snippet.

27. 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, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving a search query;

obtaining one or more search results responsive to the search query, wherein a first search result of the one or more search results identifies a resource including text;

analyzing the text of the resource to identify a contiguous portion of text of the resource using a computed histogram of words in the text of the resource, the contiguous portion of text being a phrase in the resource characteristic of the resource and not identical to the query;

selecting a suggested query phrase from the contiguous portion of the text of the resource;

generating a first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in a presentation of the one or more search results, wherein the first search result snippet presented as part of the first search result includes the suggested query phrase as a selectable user interface element for a user to submit the suggested query phrase as a new search query; and

providing the presentation of the one or more search results, including the first search result snippet as part of the first search result, in response to the search query.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein generating the first search result snippet to be presented as part of the first search result in the presentation of the one or more search results comprises visually distinguishing the suggested query phrase from other text in the first search result snippet.