Using place of accommodation as a signal for ranking reviews and point of interest search results

• US 9,817,907 B1
• Filed: 06/18/2014
• Issued: 11/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Sharifi, Matthew
• Primary Examiner(s): Mobin, Hasanul
• Application Number:
  US14/308,012
• Time in Patent Office: 1,245 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

Systems and methods for using place of accommodation as a signal for ranking reviews and point of interest search results are provided. One example method includes receiving a search query from a user and identifying a place of accommodation at which the user is staying. The method includes determining a score for each of a plurality of points of interest according to a scoring formula. The scoring formula provides the score based on a plurality of reviews of each point of interest. Reviews provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation have a greater influence on the score than reviews provided by reviewers that were not staying at the place of accommodation. The method includes selecting one or more of the plurality of points of interest to provide as search results to the user based the plurality of scores.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for providing point of interest search results, the method comprising:

receiving, by one or more computing devices, a search query from a user;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a place of accommodation at which the user is staying when the user is travelling away from home;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a plurality of points of interest that satisfy the search query;

determining, by the one or more computing devices, a score for each of the plurality of points of interest according to a scoring formula, wherein the scoring formula provides the score for each of the plurality of points of interest based at least in part on a plurality of reviews of such point of interest, and wherein reviews that were provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review have a greater influence on the score than reviews that were provided by reviewers that were not staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review;

selecting, by the one or more computing devices, one or more of the plurality of points of interest to provide as search results to the user based at least in part on the plurality of scores associated with the plurality of points of interest; and

providing, by the one or more computing devices, one or more annotated point of interest search results for display to the user, wherein the one or more annotated point of interest search results comprise one or more of the selected one or more points of interest annotated with an indication that they have been reviewed by a reviewer that was staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying, by the one or more computing devices, the place of accommodation at which the user is staying comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the user is travelling by parsing one or more flight confirmation emails.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying, by the one or more computing devices, the place of accommodation at which the user is staying comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices, that the user is travelling by detecting a change in the location of the user from a home location over one or more night-times.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein identifying, by the one or more computing devices, the place of accommodation at which the user is staying further comprises:

reverse geocoding, by the one or more computing devices, the location of the user over the one or more night-times to identify the place of accommodation.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying, by the one or more computing devices, the place of accommodation at which the user is staying comprises:

parsing, by the one or more computing devices, place of accommodation confirmation emails to identify the place of accommodation.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to determining the score for each of the plurality of points of interest:

obtaining, by the one or more computing devices, the plurality of reviews from a database; and

determining, by the one or more computing devices, whether each of the plurality of reviews was provided by a reviewer that was staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining, by the one or more computing devices, the score for each of the plurality of points of interest according to the scoring formula comprises:

determining, by the one or more computing devices for each of the plurality of points of interest, an average review score provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review; and

determining, by the one or more computing devices for each of the plurality of points of interest, the score for each of the plurality based at least in part on the average review score provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the one or more computing devices, a new review of a particular point of interest from the user; and

associating, by the one or more computing devices, the place of accommodation with the new review.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the indication for each of the one or more displayed points of interest identifies a number of reviewers that reviewed such point of interest while staying at the place of accommodation.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the indication for each of the one or more displayed points of interest identifies an average review score provided by reviewers that reviewed such point of interest while staying at the place of accommodation.

11. A system for performing point of interest searches, the system comprising:

a client device configured to transmit a search query received from a first user; and

one or more servers configured to;

receive the search query from the client device;

identify a place of accommodation recently visited by the first user while the first user is traveling away from home;

identify a plurality of points of interest in response to the search query;

determine a score for each of the plurality of points of interest according to a scoring formula, wherein the scoring formula provides the score for each of the plurality of points of interest based at least in part on a plurality of reviews of such point of interest, and wherein reviews that were provided by reviewers that had visited the place of accommodation within the threshold period of time from the time of review have a greater influence on the score than reviews that were provided by reviewers that had not visited the place of accommodation within the threshold period of time from the time of review;

select one or more of the plurality of points of interest based at least in part on the plurality of scores associated with the plurality of points of interest; and

provide one or more annotated point of interest search results to the client device as search results;

wherein the client device displays the one or more annotated point of interest search results to the first user, the one or more annotated point of interest search results comprising the one or more of the plurality of points of interest along with an annotation indicating that the one or more of the plurality of points of interest have been visited by one or more second users that had also visited the place of accommodation.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the client device respectively displays one or more annotations alongside the one or more of the plurality of points of interest, wherein each of the one or more annotations provides an indication of a number of second users that interacted with the point of interest within the threshold period of time from visiting the place of accommodation or an average review score provided by such number of second users.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein:

the one or more servers are configured to access the plurality of reviews of the plurality of points of interest from a review database; and

each review in the review database that was contributed by the one of the second users that had visited the place of accommodation within the threshold period of time from the time of interaction includes information identifying the place of accommodation.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more servers are configured to identify the place of accommodation recently visited by the first user by determining that the first user was at the place of accommodation for greater than a threshold amount of time.

15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing devices, cause the one or more processing devices to perform operations, the operations comprising:

receiving a request from a user for information concerning a point of interest;

determining that the user is traveling away from home;

identifying a place of accommodation at which the user is staying;

obtaining a plurality of reviews of the point of interest respectively provided by a plurality of reviewers;

identifying one or more of the plurality of reviews that were provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review;

determining a score for each of the one or more of the plurality of reviews according to a scoring formula, wherein the scoring formula provides for promoting the one or more of the plurality of reviews that were provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation in favor of reviews that were provided by reviewers that were not staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review; and

providing one or more annotated reviews for display to the user in response to the request for information concerning the point of interest, wherein the one or more annotated reviews comprise the one or more of the plurality of reviews annotated with an indication that the reviews were provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein providing the one or more of the plurality of reviews for display to the user comprises providing for display to the user a summary of the one or more of the plurality of reviews that were provided by reviewers that were staying at the place of accommodation at the time of review.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein one or more annotations are displayed when the one or more of the plurality of reviews are displayed to the user, the one or more annotations indicating that the one or more of the plurality of reviews were contributed by reviewers who were staying at the place of accommodation.