Mobile friendly internet searches

• US 9,292,593 B2
• Filed: 07/03/2012
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Serdy, Frank S. Jr., Romatka, Rainer J., Hennessy, Tyler E., Brench, Neil A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu
• Assistant Examiner(s): DAYE, CHELCIE L
• Application Number:
  US13/541,517
• Publication Number:
  US 20120271820A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,358 Days
• Field of Search: 707/756, 715/207, 715/866
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1737 for reducing power consumption or coping with limited storage space, e.g. in mobile devices saving storage space on storage devices G06F3/0608; power saving in storage systems G06F3/0625
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Mobile friendly internet searches are enabled by determining if individual internet sites are mobile friendly. In a described implementation, a mobile-friendliness indication is determined for an internet site. The determined mobile-friendliness indication is stored in association with the internet site in an index that may be used for internet searching. In another described implementation, a data structure comprises an internet index with multiple internet site entries having one or more associated mobile-friendliness indications. The mobile-friendliness indications may be general affirmative indications of mobile friendliness or specific indications of mobile-friendliness that identify a specific user agent type. In yet another described implementation, a search request having search terms is received, and a search is performed based thereon to produce a search results set. If the search requestor is a mobile device, the search results are ordered responsive to mobile-friendliness indications associated with the internet sites of the search results set.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a processor, the method comprising:

identifying a mobile-friendliness indication for a website having a uniform resource locator (URL) by;

requesting a first response using the URL of the website while impersonating a user agent for a personal computer;

requesting a second response using the URL while impersonating a mobile browser;

receiving the first response and the second response;

comparing the first response to the second response; and

determining the mobile-friendliness indication based at least on a comparison of the first response and the second response, wherein the mobile-friendliness indication indicates that the website is not mobile-friendly based at least partly on a first determination that the first response and the second response do not differ, and wherein the mobile-friendliness indication indicates that the website is mobile-friendly based at least partly on a second determination that the first response and the second response differ;

receiving a search request having at least one search term from a search requestor;

performing a search based at least in part on the at least one search term to produce a set of search results including the URL of the website;

determining if the search requestor is a mobile device; and

in response to determining that the search requestor is the mobile device, ordering, by the processor, one or more of the URLs of the set of search results by promoting at least one URL that is identified as being more mobile relevant and demoting at least one URL that is identified as being less mobile relevant using the mobile friendliness indications associated with the URL of the website, the mobile friendliness indication representing a varying extent to which the URLs of the website facilitates fully functionally presentation by the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing to the mobile device at least a portion of the set of search results after the ordering and the demoting.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining that the search requestor is not the mobile device, providing at least a portion of the set of search results as ordered using a standard relevance ranking algorithm.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises:

inspecting a user agent string received from the search requestor.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the ordering comprises:

moving at least one URL of the set of search results to a higher ranking position in response to determining that the at least one URL is associated with a mobile friendliness indication.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of search results comprise one or more search results identified as being mobile-friendly.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of search results identified as being mobile relevant are examined based at least in part on substantive content of the set of search results.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a second mobile-friendliness indication for the website, the identifying the second mobile-friendliness indication comprising;

determining a markup language type of the second response;

performing a second comparison of the markup language type of the second response to a type of the mobile browser; and

determining the second mobile-friendliness indication based at least on the second comparison, wherein the second mobile-friendliness indication identifies the website as not mobile-friendly based partly on a result of the second comparison indicating that the markup language type of the second response and the type of the mobile browser differ, wherein the second mobile-friendliness indication identifies the website is mobile-friendly in response to the result of the second comparison indicating that the markup language type of the second response and the type of the mobile browser do not differ,

wherein the ordering is further based on the second mobile-friendliness indication.

8. A computer-readable memory encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform acts comprising:

identifying a mobile-friendliness indication for a uniform resource locator (URL) by;

requesting a first response using the URL while impersonating a user agent for a personal computer;

requesting a second response using the URL while impersonating a mobile browser;

receiving the first response and the second response;

comparing of the first response to the second response; and

determining the mobile-friendliness indication based at least on a comparison of the first response to the second response, wherein the mobile-friendliness indication indicates that the URL is not mobile-friendly based at least partly on a first determination that the first response and the second response do not differ, and wherein the mobile-friendliness indication indicates that the URL is mobile-friendly based at least partly on a second determination that the first response and the second response differ;

identifying a mobile device to receive a search request, the search request having at least one search term;

performing a search based at least in part on the at least one search term; and

ordering a set of search results in response to the at least one search term by promoting at least one of the search results that is identified as being more mobile relevant and demoting at least one of the search results that is identified as being less mobile relevant using the mobile friendliness indications associated with the URL of the set of search results.

9. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, further comprising:

providing to the mobile device at least a portion of the set of search results based on the ordering and the demoting.

10. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, further comprising:

providing at least a portion of the set of search results as ordered using a standard relevance ranking algorithm.

11. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, further comprising:

inspecting a user agent string received from a search requestor.

12. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, wherein the ordering comprises:

moving at least one URL of the set of search results to a higher ranking position if the at least one URL is associated with mobile friendliness indication.

13. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, wherein the set of search results comprise one or more search results identified as being mobile-friendly.

14. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, wherein the set of search results identified as being mobile relevant are examined based at least in part on substantive content of the set of search results.

19. The computer-readable memory of claim 8, wherein the acts further comprise:

identifying a second mobile-friendliness indication for the website, the identifying the second mobile-friendliness indication comprising;

determining a markup language type of the second response;

performing a second comparison of the markup language type of the second response to a type of the mobile browser; and

determining the second mobile-friendliness indication based at least on the second comparison, wherein the second mobile-friendliness indication identifies the website as not mobile-friendly based partly on a result of the second comparison indicating that the markup language type of the second response and the type of the mobile browser differ, wherein the second mobile-friendliness indication identifies the website as mobile-friendly based partly on a result of the second comparison indicating that the markup language type of the second response and the type of the mobile browser do not differ,

wherein the ordering is further based on the second mobile-friendliness indication.

15. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a module having processor-executable instructions that, when executed, performs operations comprising;

requesting a first response from a first website while impersonating a user agent for a traditional device;

requesting a second response from a second website while impersonating a mobile-relevance user agent;

performing a comparison of the first response received to the second response received;

determining if the first website or the second website is mobile relevant based at least in part on a mobile-relevance indication from the comparison of the first response received to the second response received; and

moving a first reference of the first website or a second reference of the second website to a different position within a set of search results in response to an indication from a mobile device that the mobile device is requesting the set of search results.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the first response and the second response are examined based at least in part on substantive content from the first website and the second website.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the first website or the second website is mobile-friendly.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the module further performs operations comprising:

determining a markup language type of the second response;

performing a second comparison of the markup language type of the second response to a type of the mobile browser; and

determining if the first website or the second website is mobile relevant based at least in part on a second mobile-relevance indication from the second comparison,

wherein the moving is further based on the second mobile-relevance indication.