Personalizing search results

• US 9,734,211 B1
• Filed: 02/27/2015
• Issued: 08/15/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Tucker, Paul
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Wilson
• Application Number:
  US14/634,029
• Time in Patent Office: 900 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

A system receives a search query from a user and performs a search of a corpus of documents, based on the search query, to form a ranked set of search results. The system re-ranks the set of search results based on preferences of the user, or a group of users, and provides the re-ranked search results to the user.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining, by at least one of one or more server devices, preferences of a user or a group of users, wherein the preferences indicate a document bias set and weights assigned to the documents, wherein the weights include distrusted document weights;

determining, by the at least one of the one or more server devices, a high quality document set obtained from a document ranking algorithm;

creating, by at least one of the one or more server devices, an intersection set of documents which includes documents in both the document bias set and the high quality document set;

receiving, by at least one of the one or more server devices, a search query from the user;

performing, by at least one of the one or more server devices, a search of a corpus of documents, based on the search query, to form a ranked set of search result documents;

determining, by at least one of the one or more server devices, at least one link from the intersection set of documents to at least one document in the ranked set of search result documents, the at least one document not in the intersection set of documents;

re-ranking, by at least one of the one or more server devices, the set of search result documents based on the preferences of the user or the group of users, wherein re-ranking the set of search results comprises;

identifying a link of the set of links from the intersection set of documents to the document of the set of search result documents, and

based on identifying the link, adjusting a rank of the search result document based on the weight assigned to the document in the document bias set from where the identified link originated from; and

providing, by at least one of the one or more server devices, the re-ranked search results to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the ranked set of search results is ranked using a link-based document ranking algorithm.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

collecting the preferences of the user additionally from a query history or document browsing history associated with the user.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the preferences of the user, or the group of users, additionally based on user input.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the preferences of the user, or group of users, represent favored documents of the user or group of users.

6. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling at least one processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

determining preferences of a user or a group of users, wherein the preferences indicate a document bias set and weights assigned to each of the documents;

determining a high quality document set obtained from a document ranking algorithm;

creating an intersection set of documents which includes documents in both the document bias set and the high quality document set;

receiving a search query from the user;

searching a corpus of documents, based on the search query, to form a ranked set of search result documents;

determining at least one link from the intersection set of documents to at least one document in the ranked set of search result documents;

re-ranking the set of search result documents based on document biases associated with the user or a group of users, wherein re-ranking the set of search result documents comprises;

identifying a document of the set of documents that has a link to a search result document of the set of search result documents, the search result document being in addition to the document, and

based on identifying the link, adjusting a rank of the search result document based on the weight assigned to the document; and

providing search results for the search result documents to the user, wherein the search results are provided based on the re-ranking of the search result documents.

7. A system, comprising:

a keyboard or voice recognition interface to receive a search query from a user; and

a processor connected to a memory that stores instructions for use by the processor to;

determine preferences of a user or a group of users, wherein the preferences indicate a document bias set and weights assigned to the documents, wherein the weights include distrusted document weights;

determine a high quality document set obtained from a document ranking algorithm;

create an intersection set of documents which includes documents in both the document bias set and the high quality document set;

execute a search of a corpus of documents based on the search query to obtain a ranked set of search result documents,

determining a set of links from the intersection set of documents to a set of linked documents in the ranked set of search result documents, the set of linked documents in the ranked set of search result documents not in the intersection set of documents;

re-rank the ranked set of search result documents based on preferences of the user or a group of users that includes the user, wherein to re-rank the set of search result documents the processing unit is to;

identify at least one document of the set of linked documents has a link in the set of links with a search result document of the set of search result documents, and

based on identifying the association, adjust a rank of the search result document based on the weight assigned to the document containing the link in the document bias set of documents and the intersection set of documents, and

provide a list of search results for the search result documents to the user, wherein the list is ordered based on the re-ranking of the search result documents.