Anchor text summarization for corroboration

• US 20070143282A1
• Filed: 03/31/2006
• Published: 06/21/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhao, Shubin, Betz, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 9,208,229 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/295 Named entity recognition

Abstract

A system and method for corroborating a set of facts. If the anchor text of the references to a document matches the name of a set of facts, the referenced document is used to corroborate the set of facts. By analyzing the anchor text of the references to the document, the system is capable of determining if a document is relevant to the set of facts. These documents can then be used to corroborate or refute the facts, thereby improving their overall quality.

Claims

1. A method for corroborating a set of facts, said set of facts associated with a name, the method comprising:

receiving a document and a reference to the document, said reference comprising anchor text;

determining if the anchor text matches the name associated with the set of facts; and

responsive to determining that the anchor text matches the name associated with the set of facts, corroborating the set of fads using the document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving a reference to the document comprises receiving a set of candidate anchor texts, and wherein determining if the anchor text matches the name associated with the set of facts comprises:

selecting an anchor text from the set of candidate anchor texts; and

determining if the selected anchor text matches the name associated with the set of facts.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein selecting the anchor text from the set of candidate anchor texts comprises aggregating the set of candidate anchor texts.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein selecting the anchor text from the set of candidate anchor texts comprises performing n-gram clustering on at least one member of the set of candidate anchor texts.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the document to determine if the document contains valid data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein analyzing the document to determine if the document contains valid data comprises searching the document for the name associated with the set of facts.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the document comprises an HTML document comprising a header, and wherein searching the document for the name associated with the set of facts comprises searching the header of the HTML document for the name associated with the set of facts.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein analyzing the document to determine if the document contains valid data comprises searching the document for the anchor text.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the document comprises an HTML document comprising a header, and wherein searching the document for the anchor text comprises searching the header of the HTML document for the anchor text.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the anchor text to determine if the document contains valid data.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein analyzing the anchor text to determine if the document contains valid data comprises comparing the anchor text to a list of known noise text.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the name associated with the set of facts comprises an object name.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of facts comprises an object.

14. A system for corroborating a set of facts, said set of facts associated with a name, the system comprising:

a name matcher, having as input the name of the set of facts and a reference to a document, said reference comprising anchor text, said name matcher configured to determine if said anchor text matches said name;

a fact corroborator, responsive to said determination that said anchor text matches said name, configured to corroborate the set of facts using the document.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein said set of facts comprises an object, and wherein said name comprises an object name.

16. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium, for corroborating a set of facts, said set of facts associated with a name, the computer-readable medium comprising:

program code for receiving a document and a reference to the document, said reference comprising anchor text;

program code for determining if the anchor text matches the name associated with the set of facts; and

program code, responsive to determining that the anchor text matches the name associated with the set of facts, for corroborating the set of facts using the document.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, said computer-readable medium further comprising:

program code for analyzing the anchor text to determine if the document contains valid data.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein said program code for analyzing the anchor text to determine if the document contains valid data comprises program code for comparing the anchor text to a list of known noise text.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the name associated with the set of facts comprises an object name.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the set of facts comprises an object.