Identification of content in an electronic document

• US 8,301,998 B2
• Filed: 12/14/2007
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Ruvini, Jean-David
• Primary Examiner(s): STORK, KYLE R
• Application Number:
  US11/956,687
• Publication Number:
  US 20090158138A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,782 Days
• Field of Search: 715/200, 715/234, 715/243, 715/254
• US Class Current: 715/243
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/258 Heading extraction; Automatic titling; Numbering

Abstract

In some embodiments, a method includes receiving an electronic document that comprises a plurality of sections. The method includes marking the plurality of sections as a content section or a non-content section using an attribute of the sections that includes at least one of a width of the section, a density of the plurality of hyperlinks in the section, a size of a font of text in the section and whether a title of the electronic document overlaps with text in the section. The method also includes storing the marking of the plurality of sections of the electronic document in a machine-readable medium.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an electronic document that comprises a plurality of sections;

marking the plurality of sections as a content section or a non-content section using an attribute of the sections that includes at least one of a width of the section, a density of the plurality of hyperlinks in the section, a size of a font of text in the section, and whether a title of the electronic document overlaps with text in the section;

comparing a value of a different attribute of two adjacent sections of the plurality of sections, a first section of the two adjacent sections being marked to include content and a second section of the two adjacent sections being marked not to include content;

changing a mark of the second section from a mark not to include content to a mark to include content in response to the comparison resulting in a determination that the value of the different attribute of the first section is the same as the value of the different attribute of the second section; and

storing the mark of the plurality of sections of the electronic document in a machine-readable medium.

2. The method of claim 1, the different attribute comprising a background color.

3. The method of claim 1, the different attribute comprising a font size.

4. The method of claim 1, the plurality of sections including a first section adjacent to a second section, the first section being marked to include content and the second section being marked not to include content, the method further comprising changing the mark of the second section to a mark to include content, in response to a determination that the first section and the second section share a side that does not include a visual border.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing a search of electronic documents the search comprising searching the data in one or more identified content sections of the electronic document.

6. The method of claim 5, the search not including searching the data in one or more identified non-content sections of the electronic document.

7. The method of claim 1, marking the plurality of sections comprising marking the plurality of sections as a content section in response to a determination that a width of the section is greater than X percent of a width of the electronic document.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein X equals 20.

9. The method of claim 1, the electronic document comprising an electronic document.

10. A non-transitory machine-readable medium including instructions which when executed by a machine causes the machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving a web page that comprises a plurality of blocks; and

marking the plurality of blocks as a content block or a non-content block based on a value of an attribute of the blocks, the plurality of blocks including a first block adjacent to a second block, the first block being marked as a content block and the second block being marked as a non-content block;

comparing a value of a different attribute for the first block to a value of the different attribute for the second block;

changing a mark of the second block to a content block in response to a determination that the value of the different attribute of the first block is the same as the value of the different attribute of the second block; and

storing the mark of the plurality of blocks of the web page in a machine-readable medium.

11. The machine-readable medium of claim 10, the different attribute comprising at least one of a width of the block, a density of the plurality of hyperlinks in the block, a size of a font of text in the block and whether a title of the web page is within data of the block.

12. The machine-readable medium of claim 10, marking the plurality of blocks comprising marking the plurality of blocks as content blocks in response to a determination that a ratio of non-hyperlink content to hyperlink content is greater than N percent.

13. The machine-readable medium of claim 12, wherein N equals 20.

14. The machine-readable medium of claim 10, the different attribute comprising a background color.

15. The machine-readable medium of claim 10, the different attribute comprising a font size.

16. A system comprising:

a hardware implemented identification module to mark a plurality of sections of a electronic document as having content or having non-content using an attribute of the sections that includes at least one of a width of the section, a density of the plurality of hyperlinks in the section, a size of a font of text in the section and whether a title of the electronic document overlaps with text in the section,

the plurality of sections comprising a first section adjacent to a second section, the first section being marked as having content and the second section being marked as having non-content,

the identification module operating to change a mark of the second section to having content based on a comparison of a different attribute of the first section and the different attribute of the second section; and

a search engine to parse the sections having content to index for a subsequent search.

17. The system of claim 16, the different attribute comprising a background color.

18. The system of claim 16, the different attribute comprising a text color.

19. The system of claim 16, the different attribute comprising a font size.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the search engine is to not parse the sections having non-content to index for the subsequent search.

21. The system of claim 16, the identification module being to mark the plurality of sections as having content in response to a determination that a font size for a majority of text is less than M point.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein M equals 10.