PROVIDING TOPIC BASED SEARCH GUIDANCE

• US 20130080460A1
• Filed: 09/22/2011
• Published: 03/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tomko, Daniel Jason, Rajvanshy, Vikas, Pardi, William J., Gradek, Michael, Lynn, John
• Granted Patent: US 9,043,350 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/767
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3325 Reformulation based on results of preceding query
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9038 Presentation of query results
• 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 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for providing topical search suggestions are provided. Topical search suggestions allow a user to receive search results related to the designated topic or subject matter. The present invention may generate multiple topics based on search input provided by a user. The search input may be a search prefix that includes one or more words entered into the search query box before the completed search query is submitted to the search engine. A search interface then presents the topics derived from the search prefix to a user before the user submits the query. In another embodiment, the user designates multiple search inputs. The present invention generates search results based on the search inputs and then presents topics extracted from the search results. In one embodiment, the topics are extracted by performing a natural language analysis of search result metadata.

Claims

1. One or more computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing device perform a method of generating topical query suggestions, the method comprising:

receiving a search query;

generating a preliminary set of search results for the search query;

extracting topics from the preliminary set of search results;

outputting the topics for display before the preliminary set of search results are output for display;

receiving a selection of an individual topic within the topics; and

outputting for display a subset of search results from the preliminary set of search results that are associated with the individual topic.

2. The media of claim 1, wherein the topics are extracted from the preliminary set of search results by performing a natural language analysis on individual search results within the preliminary set of search results.

3. The media of claim 2, wherein the natural language analysis is performed on only uniform resource locators (“

URL”

), and titles of the individual search results, and a content of the individual search results are not analyzed.

4. The media of claim 1, wherein the topics are output for display before a user submits the search query to be searched.

5. The media of claim 1, wherein the topics are output for display in a box that drops down from a search box into which the search query is input.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises outputting the topics for display with the subset of search results to allow a user to select a new topic after viewing the subset of search results.

7. The media of claim 6, wherein the method further comprises displaying a second subset of search results from the preliminary set of search results that are associated with the new topic.

8. A method of generating topical query suggestions from a search prefix, the method comprising:

receiving a search prefix, wherein the search prefix is a group of characters entered by a user into a search interface, and wherein the search prefix is one or more characters less than a complete search query;

generating an auto-complete query that is based on the search prefix;

generating a set of search results for the auto-complete query;

extracting topics from the set of search results; and

outputting the topics for display and selection.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a selection of an individual topic within the topics; and

outputting for display search results from the set of search results that are associated with the individual topic.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the topics are displayed with one or more auto-complete query suggestions.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the topics are extracted from the set of search results by performing a natural language analysis on individual search results within the set of search results.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the natural language analysis is performed on only metadata of the individual search results, and a content of the individual search results is not analyzed.

13. One or more computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing device perform a method of generating topical query suggestions in response to multiple search inputs, the method comprising:

receiving multiple search inputs from a user that are all part of a search session;

for each search input, generating a set of search results, thereby forming a plurality of search result sets;

extracting topics from each of the set of search results;

identifying one or more common topics that were extracted from at least two of the plurality of search results sets;

outputting the one or more common topics for display;

receiving a selection of an individual topic within the one or more common topics; and

outputting for display a subset of search results from the set of search results that are associated with the individual topic.

14. The media of claim 13, wherein the set of search results are not output for display to the user prior to receiving the selection.

15. The media of claim 13, wherein the search inputs are portions of text within one or more documents, and wherein designations of the portions of text are received from the user as the search inputs.

16. The media of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises receiving an instruction from the user to generate the topics after the portions of text were designated.

17. The media of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises receiving an indication to start a new search session.

18. The media of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a selection of an additional topic within the one or more common topics; and

outputting for display a new subset of search results from the set of search results that are associated with the individual topic and the additional topic.

19. The media of claim 13, wherein the topics are extracted from the set of search results by performing a natural language analysis on individual search results within the set of search results.

20. The media of claim 13, wherein the search inputs are multiple search queries submitted during the search session.