Ranking search results based on the frequency of access on the search results by users of a social-networking system

• US 9,864,806 B2
• Filed: 02/06/2015
• Issued: 01/09/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lunt, Christopher, Galbreath, Nicholas, Winner, Jeffrey
• Primary Examiner(s): Ly, Cheyne D
• Application Number:
  US14/615,654
• Publication Number:
  US 20150154202A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,068 Days
• Field of Search: 707722, 707723, 707727, 707732, 707781, 707784
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9536 Search customisation based on social or collaborative filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles

Abstract

Particular embodiments access a search query submitted by a first user of a social-networking system; identify one or more web pages in response to the search query; for each of the one or more web pages, determine a value indicating a number of user clicks associated with the web page by one or more second users of the social-networking system who are connected to the first user within the social-networking system; and send a set of hyperlinks for the one or more web pages, wherein hyperlinks for web pages where the value is greater than zero are visually emphasized over other hyperlinks.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by one or more computing devices, a search query from a client system of a first user of a social-networking system;

identifying, by one or more computing devices, one or more web pages responsive to the search query;

determining, for each identified web page, from interaction data associated with the identified web page, a number of relevant interactions from among interactions with the identified web page by users of the social-networking system, wherein the relevant interactions are the interactions made by a subset of the users of the social-networking system having a type of relationship with the first user matching a setting of an application server of the social-networking system;

ranking, by the one or more computing devices, one or more links to one or more of the identified web pages, respectively, based at least in part on the determined number of relevant interactions with the identified web page corresponding to the links; and

sending, by one or more computing devices, instructions for presenting a search-results page to the client system of the first user responsive to the search query, the search-results page comprising one or more links to one or more of the identified web pages, respectively, the links being presented in ranked order.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing, by one or more computing devices, a graph data structure comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of nodes comprises a first node corresponding to the first user and one or more second nodes corresponding to the one or more second users of the social-networking system, respectively.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the first user corresponds to a first node of the plurality of nodes, and wherein the one or more second users correspond to one or more second nodes of the plurality of nodes, respectively, each second node being connected to the first node by an edge.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by one or more computing devices, a value for each of the web pages based at least in part on the number of relevant interactions with the web page by one or more second users.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the links are presented in ranked order based on the determined value for the web page corresponding to the link.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the links are presented in ranked order further based at least in part on a number of times the link has been clicked by the second users divided by a number of times the link has been presented to the second users.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the identified web pages is a sponsored web page, and wherein the links are presented in ranked order further based at least in part on bids for the sponsored web page.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of relevant interactions with the identified web page comprises a click-through rate of the link to the identified web page.

10. A computing system comprising:

a memory comprising instructions executable by one or more processors; and

the one or more processors coupled to the memory and operable to execute the instructions, the one or more processors being operable when executing the instructions to;

receive a search query from a client system of a first user of a social-networking system;

identify one or more web pages responsive to the search query;

determine, for each identified web page, from interaction data associated with the identified web page, a number of relevant interactions from among interactions with the identified web page by users of the social-networking system, wherein the relevant interactions are the interactions made by a subset of the users of the social-networking system having a type of relationship with the first user matching a setting of an application server of the social-networking system;

rank one or more links to one or more of the identified web pages, respectively, based at least in part on the determined number of relevant interactions with the identified web page corresponding to the links; and

send instructions for presenting a search-results page to the client system of the first user responsive to the search query, the search-results page comprising one or more links to one or more of the identified web pages, respectively, the links being presented in ranked order.

11. The system of claim 10, the one or more processors being operable when executing the instructions to:

access a graph data structure comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the first user corresponds to a first node of the plurality of nodes, and wherein the one or more second users correspond to one or more second nodes of the plurality of nodes, respectively, each second node being connected to the first node by an edge.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein ranking the one or more links based at least in part on the number of relevant interactions comprises ranking the one or more links based on a number of times the link has been clicked by the second users divided by a number of times the link has been presented to the second users.

14. The system of claim 10 , wherein one or more of the identified web pages is a sponsored web page, and wherein ranking the one or more links to one or more of the identified web pages, respectively, is further based at least in part on bids for the sponsored web page.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the number of relevant interactions with the identified web page comprises a click-through rate of the link to the identified web page.