Ranking content using content and content authors

• US 9,569,438 B1
• Filed: 02/27/2015
• Issued: 02/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Osinga, Douwe, Christoph, Stefan
• Primary Examiner(s): Ruiz, Angelica
• Application Number:
  US14/633,377
• Time in Patent Office: 718 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/382 using citations hypermedia G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products for identifying original content. In one aspect a method is described that includes identifying a first document in a collection of documents. The first document contains a content piece and the content piece does not occur in any earlier document in the collection. The first document is associated with a first author and the first author associated with a first rank. The first rank of the first author is determined using a score of the content piece. The score is a figure of merit of the content piece.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

accessing, by at least one processor, a corpus of documents;

determining, by the at least one processor, that a particular document by a particular author and in the corpus of documents includes two or more different content pieces that each occur in at least one of one or more other documents in the corpus of documents;

determining, by the at least one processor, a quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents;

adjusting, by the at least one processor, a rank of the particular author in relation to other authors based at least in part on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents; and

indexing, by the at least one processor, a quantity of the particular document and other documents by the particular author at a greater frequency than a quantity of documents by another author who is ranked lower than the particular author, wherein the quantity of the particular document and other documents by the particular author is greater than the quantity of documents by the other author who is ranked lower than the particular author.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a score based on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises increasing the rank of the particular author based on an increase of the determined score.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises adjusting the rank of the particular author in relation to other authors based on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the particular author is different from authors of the one or more other documents in the corpus of documents.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the different content pieces represents a number of non-adjacent words.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

fragmenting the particular document into a plurality of partially overlapping content pieces.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises adjusting the rank of the particular author based at least partly on a count of original content pieces in one or more other documents authored by the particular author, wherein the original content pieces are content pieces that do not occur in the corpus of documents.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after adjusting the rank of the particular author, determining that the particular author is associated with a second document in the corpus of documents; and

adjusting a rank of the second document among the corpus of documents based at least partly on the rank of the particular author.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the operations comprising:

accessing, by at least one processor, a corpus of documents;

determining, by the at least one processor, that a particular document by a particular author and in the corpus of documents includes two or more different content pieces that each occur in at least one of one or more other documents in the corpus of documents;

determining, by the at least one processor, a quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents;

adjusting, by the at least one processor, a rank of the particular author in relation to other authors based at least in part on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents; and

indexing, by the at least one processor, a quantity of the particular document and other documents by the particular author at a greater frequency than a quantity of documents by another author who is ranked lower than the particular author, wherein the quantity of the particular document and other documents by the particular author is greater than the quantity of documents by the other author who is ranked lower than the particular author.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a score based on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises adjusting the rank of the particular author in relation to other authors based on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises adjusting the rank of the particular author based at least partly on a count of original content pieces in one or more other documents authored by the particular author, wherein the original content pieces are content pieces that do not occur in the corpus of documents.

14. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a computer readable medium coupled to the data processing apparatus, having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising;

accessing, by at least one processor, a corpus of documents;

determining, by the at least one processor, that a particular document by a particular author and in the corpus of documents includes two or more different content pieces that each occur in at least one of one or more other documents in the corpus of documents;

determining, by the at least one processor, a quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents;

adjusting, by the at least one processor, a rank of the particular author in relation to other authors based at least in part on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents; and

indexing, by the at least one processor, a quantity of the particular document and other documents by the particular author at a greater frequency than a quantity of documents by another author who is ranked lower than the particular author, wherein the quantity of the particular document and other documents by the particular author is greater than the quantity of documents by the other author who is ranked lower than the particular author.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a score based on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises adjusting the rank of the particular author in relation to other authors based on the quantity of (i) other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents, or (ii) authors associated with the other documents in the corpus of documents whose content pieces are included in the particular document by the particular author and in the corpus of documents.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein adjusting the rank of the particular author comprises adjusting the rank of the particular author based at least partly on a count of original content pieces in one or more other documents authored by the particular author, wherein the original content pieces are content pieces that do not occur in the corpus of documents.