METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR ENHANCED PLACEMENT SEARCH ENGINE BASED ON USER USAGE

• US 20120005181A1
• Filed: 06/30/2010
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emergency 24 Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Emergency 24 Incorporated
• Inventors: Monteverde, Dante
• Granted Patent: US 8,316,021 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

Systems and methods for search engines are disclosed wherein the search engine results and the information on which such are based are altered based on users specifically providing feedback to the search engine the appropriateness of one or more of the search results provided in response to a search query made by the user to the search engine. Therefore, the search engine is a dynamic and evolving ranking system for determining search results to be displayed to users in response to a search query.

Claims

1. A web-based computer system search engine for receiving search queries and returning search results, the system comprising:

an input for a search query, the input displayed on a webpage displayed at a remote computer;

a processor for receiving the search query from the remote computer;

a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium for storing websites, links respectively associated with the websites, and respective information relevant to content of the websites;

an alert system for alerting a system administrator;

wherein the system produces a results webpage for display on the remote computer in response to the search query, the results webpage including links listed according to a ranking of relevance to the search query and a user feedback input for a user to provide feedback information relevant to the accuracy of the links to the search query, and

wherein the alert system alerts the system administrator when the user provides feedback a plurality of times on a same search query.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the processor receives the user feedback information and alters the information in the computer-readable recording medium at least in part based on the user feedback information.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the feedback input includes a numerical ranking of relevance.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the feedback input includes a comment input.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the feedback input includes a relevance input describing the relevance of the website to the user.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the processor receives the user feedback information and compares user feedback information received from a plurality of users.

12. The system of claim 2, wherein the computer readable recording medium includes information related to whether the user has completed a minimum number of entries of feedback information;

and the user feedback information analyzed by the processor when altering the information in the storage includes only user feedback information for the users that have completed the minimum number of entries.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the user is provided a monetary incentive to provide the user feedback information.

7. A method of dynamically ranking search results relative to a search query, the method including the steps of:

providing a search engine including a storage portion including respective information relevant to identified websites, the search engine being associated with a processing portion;

providing a search engine interface webpage for display on a user computer;

receiving a search query from the user computer via the search engine interface webpage;

processing, via the processing portion, the search query to determine a ranked set of results from the storage portion;

providing at least a portion of the ranked set of results as a results webpage for display on the user computer;

receiving feedback input from the user computer related to the relevance of one or more displayed search results;

altering the information in the storage portion relevant to the search results for which the user provides feedback; and

alerting a system administrator of the search engine when the user provides feedback a plurality of times on a same search query.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the step of altering the information includes aggregating information received from a plurality of users.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the step of providing a portion of the ranked set of results includes providing feedback inputs for display on the results webpage.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein displaying feedback inputs includes presenting one or more of a ranking input for receiving a numerical ranking, a comment input for receiving a text comment, and a relevance input for receiving a relevance ranking from the user.

11. The method of claim 7 wherein the method includes the step of aggregating feedback information from a plurality of users, and the step of altering includes altering the storage information based on the aggregate feedback information.

14. The method of claim 7, further comprising altering the information in the storage portion relevant to the search results for which the user provides feedback using only feedback provided by users that have entered a predetermined number of feedback entries.

15. The method of claim 7, further comprising providing a monetary incentive to the user to provide the user feedback information.