PSEUDO-ANCHOR TEXT EXTRACTION

• US 20100145956A1
• Filed: 01/29/2010
• Published: 06/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zhu, Mingjie, Nie, Zaiqing, Shi, Shuming, Xing, Fei, Wen, Ji-Rong
• Granted Patent: US 8,073,838 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/754
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/313 Selection or weighting of terms for indexing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing

Abstract

A search method uses pseudo-anchor text associated with search objects to improve search performance. The pseudo-anchor text may be extracted in combination with an identifier of the search objects (such as a pseudo-URL) from a digital corpus such as a collection of documents. Pseudo-anchor texts for each object are preferably extracted from candidate anchor blocks using a machine learning based approach. The pseudo-anchor texts are made available for searching and used to help rank the objects in a search result to improve search performance. The method may be used in vertical search of objects such as published articles, products and images that lack explicit URLs and anchor text information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying an object in content;

identifying information associated with the object, and extracting the information associated with the object;

constructing a pseudo uniform resource locator (pseudo-URL) of the object based at least on the information extracted;

associating the pseudo-URL with the object; and

providing the information extracted for search.

2. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the object lacks an associated uniform resource locator (URL).

3. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the identifying information associated with the object, and extracting the information associated with the object comprises identifying a first block of information associated with the object, and extracting the first block of information associated with the object;

the computer-implemented method further comprising;

identifying a second block of information associated with the object, and extracting the second block of information associated with the object; and

aggregating the first and second blocks of information associated with the object to obtain aggregated information associated with the object.

4. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 3, further comprising extracting pseudo-anchor text from the aggregated information associated with the object, wherein the pseudo-anchor text comprises the information extracted that is provided for search.

5. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the content is one of a plurality of types of content, the plurality of types of content comprising a file, a web-page, a document, a compilation, an image, and a video.

6. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, further comprising ranking search results based at least on the information extracted.

7. A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, further comprising parsing the content to construct a link associated with the pseudo-URL.

8. A system comprising:

a processor;

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing a plurality of modules, at least one of the plurality of modules upon execution by the processor performing pseudo-anchor text extraction comprising extracting pseudo-anchor text from at least one candidate anchor block.

9. A system as recited in claim 8, wherein the at least one of the plurality of modules includes a pseudo uniform resource locator (pseudo-URL) extraction module that upon execution by the processor causes extraction of a pseudo-URL.

10. A system as recited in claim 8, wherein the at least one of the plurality of modules includes a candidate anchor block extraction module that upon execution by the processor causes a piece of text associated with an object, the piece of text having one or more specified reference points, to be extracted.

11. A system as recited in claim 10, wherein the at least one of the plurality of modules further includes a candidate anchor block accumulation module that upon execution by the processor causes a plurality of candidate anchor blocks associated with the object to be accumulated.

12. A system as recited in claim 8, wherein the at least one of the plurality of modules includes a pseudo-anchor extraction module to identify and extract a pseudo-anchor associated with an object for use in search.

13. A system as recited in claim 8, further comprising a digital corpus available for pseudo-anchor text extraction.

14. A system as recited in claim 13, wherein the digital corpus comprises one or more of a plurality of types of content, the plurality of types of content comprising a file, a web-page, a document, a compilation, an image, and a video.

15. A computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions encoded thereon, the computer-readable instructions upon execution configuring a search engine to perform operations comprising:

identifying a plurality of objects in content;

identifying at least one candidate anchor block associated with each of the plurality of objects, and extracting the candidate anchor block;

in an event more than one candidate anchor block is extracted;

aggregating candidate anchor blocks that are associated with a common object;

extracting pseudo-anchor text from the candidate anchor blocks that were aggregated; and

providing the pseudo-anchor text for search.

16. A computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, wherein at least one of the plurality of objects lacks an associated uniform resource locator (URL).

17. A computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, wherein the content comprises one or more of a plurality of types of content, the plurality of types of content comprising a file, a web-page, a document, a compilation, an image, and a video.

18. A computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, the operations further comprising:

identifying pseudo-URLs for the plurality of objects;

parsing the content to construct a pseudo-link associated with the pseudo-URL.

19. A computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, the operations further comprising ranking search results based at least on the pseudo-anchor text.

20. A computer-readable media as recited in claim 15, the operations further comprising automatically assigning each term in each candidate anchor block a degree of belonging to pseudo-anchor text.