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Geo-aware spellchecking and auto-suggest search engines

  • US 9,443,036 B2
  • Filed: 01/17/2014
  • Issued: 09/13/2016
  • Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2013
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for providing geo-aware auto-suggestions for a search engine, the method comprising:

  • processing, by a computing system, one or more characters corresponding to user input for a search query to a searching service, wherein the processing is prior to completion of the search query, and wherein the searching service comprises one or more information repositories retaining business listing information about a plurality of businesses;

    processing, by the computing system, information about a geographical location, wherein the information about the geographical location corresponds to at least one of;

    (a) automatically-gathered location information about the end-user computing device;

    (b) user-entered location information gathered from the end user;

    (c) location information previously associated with the end-user;

    (d) location information previously associated with the end-user computing device; and

    (e) location information inferred from the one or more characters corresponding to the search query;

    identifying, by the computing system, a geographical area of interest at least partially based on the information about the geographical location;

    identifying, by the computing system, one or more potential spelling corrections to at least a portion of the search query based at least in part on (a) the one or more characters of the user input corresponding to the search query being detected in real-time prior to completion of the search query, and (b) the geographical area of interest;

    determining, by the computing system, one or more geo-specific suggestions at least partially based on the at least the portion of the search query and/or a selected correction of the one or more potential spelling corrections to the at least the portion of the search query, wherein;

    the one or more geo-specific suggestions correspond to one or more identified businesses located in the geographical area of interest; and

    the determining the one or more geo-specific suggestions comprises identifying a set of business listing information corresponding to the geographical area of interest and the at least the portion of the search query and/or a selected correction of the one or more potential spelling corrections to the at least the portion of the search query; and

    causing, by the computing system, indication of at least one of the one or more geo-specific suggestions as a user-selectable option to complete the search query in a search query field for a search engine and/or submission of the at least one of the one or more geo-specific suggestions to the search engine as a selected search query.

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