Suggested Keywords for Searching Content on Online Social Networks

• US 20160162502A1
• Filed: 12/05/2014
• Published: 06/09/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhou, Jinlong, Li, Xiao, Boucher, Maxime, Raina, Rajat, Hazra, Kurchi Subhra
• Granted Patent: US 9,990,441 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3322 using system suggestions G06F16/3325 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90324 using system suggestions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an unstructured text query to search for posts of the online social network. The method includes parsing the text query to identify one or more n-grams. The method includes searching an index of keyword phrases associated with the first user to identify one or more keyword phrases matching one or more of the n-grams of the text query. The index of keyword phrases is based on posts by one or more second users of the online social network. The method includes calculating a keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases. The method includes generating one or more suggested queries. Each suggested query includes one or more n-grams identified from the text query and one or more identified keyword phrases. The method includes sending one or more of the suggested queries to search for posts of the online social network.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, from a client system of a first user of an online social network, an unstructured text query to search for posts of the online social network, the text query comprising one or more n-grams;

parsing the text query to identify one or more n-grams;

searching an index of keyword phrases associated with the first user to identify one or more keyword phrases matching one or more of the n-grams of the text query, the index of keyword phrases being based on posts by one or more second users of the online social network;

calculating a keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases;

generating one or more suggested queries, each suggested query comprising one or more n-grams identified from the text query and one or more identified keyword phrases having a keyword score greater than a threshold keyword score; and

sending, to the client system of the first user for display in response to receiving the text query, one or more of the suggested queries to search for posts of the online social network.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing a social graph 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, the nodes comprising;

a first node corresponding to the first user associated with an online social network;

a plurality of user nodes corresponding to a plurality of second users of the online social network, respectively; and

a plurality of post nodes corresponding to a plurality of posts of the online social network, respectively, each post node being connected to one or more user nodes by one or more edges.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the index of keyword phrases by extracting keyword phrases from a set of posts authored by one or more second users of the online social network.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of posts comprises posts the first user has viewed.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein each post in the set of posts is associated with a privacy setting defining a visibility of the post, and where the set of posts comprises posts having a visibility that is visible to the first user.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of posts comprises posts within a timeframe.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of posts comprises posts authored by one or more second users within a threshold degree of separation of the first user in a social graph.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein generating the index of keyword phrases comprises extracting keyword phrases from the set of posts based on a term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) analysis of the content of each post in the set of posts.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein generating the index of keyword phrases is performed responsive to receiving the unstructured text query.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein generating the index of keyword phrases is performed prior to receiving the unstructured text query.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the index of keyword phrases by extracting keyword phrases from one or more third-party pages linked in a set of posts authored by one or more second users of the online social network.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases is calculated based at least in part on a number of times the first user has engaged with the post on which the keyword phrase is based.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases is calculated based at least in part on a popularity of the post on which the keyword phrase is based.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases is calculated based at least in part on a number of times a keyword phrase has been selected.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, for each identified keyword suggestion, whether the suggested query results in a null-search; and

removing each suggested query resulting in a null-search from the generated suggested queries.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the suggested queries are sent for display on a user interface of a native application associated with the online social network on the client system of the first user.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the suggested queries are sent for display on a webpage of the online social network accessed by a browser client on the client system of the first user.

18. One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

receive, from a client system of a first user of an online social network, an unstructured text query to search for posts of the online social network, the text query comprising one or more n-grams;

parse the text query to identify one or more n-grams;

search an index of keyword phrases associated with the first user to identify one or more keyword phrases matching one or more of the n-grams of the text query, the index of keyword phrases being based on posts by one or more second users of the online social network;

calculate a keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases;

generate one or more suggested queries, each suggested query comprising one or more n-grams identified from the text query and one or more identified keyword phrases having a keyword score greater than a threshold keyword score; and

send, to the client system of the first user for display in response to receiving the text query, one or more of the suggested queries to search for posts of the online social network.

19. A system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a non-transitory memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

receive, from a client system of a first user of an online social network, an unstructured text query to search for posts of the online social network, the text query comprising one or more n-grams;

parse the text query to identify one or more n-grams;

search an index of keyword phrases associated with the first user to identify one or more keyword phrases matching one or more of the n-grams of the text query, the index of keyword phrases being based on posts by one or more second users of the online social network;

calculate a keyword score for each of the identified keyword phrases;

generate one or more suggested queries, each suggested query comprising one or more n-grams identified from the text query and one or more identified keyword phrases having a keyword score greater than a threshold keyword score; and

send, to the client system of the first user for display in response to receiving the text query, one or more of the suggested queries to search for posts of the online social network.