Supplemental search results having social connection endorsement data on a SERP

• US 9,104,751 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2011
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Siamwalla, Yajie, Shenoy, Rajesh Krishna, Duan, Lei, Musukula, Satish Kumar, Carson, Charles C. Jr., Ching, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): DANG, THANH HA T
• Application Number:
  US13/341,561
• Publication Number:
  US 20130097144A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,320 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3326 using relevance feedback from the user, e.g. relevance feedback on documents, documents sets, document terms or passages
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for presenting supplemental search results having indications that identified documents have been endorsed by the user and/or social network connections of the user are provided. A search query is received and it is determined that the user'"'"'s social networking data is available. Documents that have been endorsed by the user and/or social network connections of the user are searched to identify those that satisfy the input search query. The satisfying documents are assigned a relevance score to determine whether each satisfying document is relevant enough to be shown and to determine placement of the document on the SERP relative to standard search results. Upon rendering of the SERP, a supplemental search result identifying documents that were endorsed by the user and/or social network connections of the user is presented, as is an indication about which social network connection(s) of the user endorsed the document.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable storage memory media storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform a method for presenting, in association with search engine results pages, supplemental results in response to search queries with indications that such supplemental results have been endorsed by a user and/or social network connections of the user, the method comprising:

receiving a search query from the user;

determining that data associated with social network connections of the user is available;

determining at least one algorithmically-derived search result that satisfies the received search query;

determining at least one document that satisfies the received search query and that has been endorsed by the user and/or one or more of the social network connections of the user, wherein an endorsement made by the user and/or one or more of the social network connections of a different document than the at least one document is determined as being an endorsement of the at least one document made by the user and/or one or more of the social network connections, the at least one document being determined independent of the at least one algorithmically-derived search result; and

presenting an identifier of the at least one document on a search engine results page with an indication that the at least one document has been endorsed by the user and/or the one or more of the social network connections of the user.

2. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises presenting an identification of the user and/or the one or more social network connections of the user that endorsed the at least one document.

3. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises presenting the at least one algorithmically-derived search result that satisfies the received search query on the search engine results page.

4. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1, wherein determining that data associated with the social network connections of the user is available comprises determining that the user is engaged in an active session with a social networking application associated with the data.

5. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 4, wherein the data associated with the social network connections of the user is retrieved from a data store associated with the social networking application.

6. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1, wherein receiving the search query from the user comprises receiving the search query via a user interface associated with a search application, and wherein the data associated with the social network connections of the user is retrieved from a data store associated with the search application.

7. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1,

wherein the method further comprises assigning a relevance score to the at least one document, the relevance score being based, at least in part, on endorsement data of the at least one document;

and wherein presenting an identifier of the at least one document on a search engine results page comprises presenting an identifier of the at least one document on a search engine results page when the relevance score meets or exceeds a threshold relevance score.

8. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

presenting the at least one algorithmically-derived search result that satisfies the received search query on the search engine results page; and

utilizing a relevance score to determine placement of the at least one document on the search engine results page relative to the at least one algorithmically-derived search result.

9. The one or more computer-readable storage memory media of claim 1, wherein the social network connections of the user include first degree social network connections.

10. A method being performed by one or more computing devices including at least one processor, for presenting, in association with search engine results pages, supplemental results in response to search queries with indications that such supplemental results have been endorsed by a user and/or social network connections of the user, the method comprising:

receiving a search query from the user;

determining that data associated with social network connections of the user is available;

determining a plurality of algorithmically-derived search results that satisfy the received search query;

determining at least one document that satisfies the received search query and that has been endorsed by one or more of the social network connections of the user, wherein an endorsement by the one or more of the social network connections of a different document than the at least one document is determined as being an endorsement of the at least one document made by the one or more of the social network connection, the at least one document being determined independent of the plurality of algorithmically-derived search results;

assigning a relevance score to the at least one document, the relevance score being based, at least in part, on endorsement data of the at least one document; and

presenting an identifier of the at least one document on a search engine results page based on the relevance score, the presenting being with an indication that the at least one document has been endorsed by the user and/or the one or more of the social network connections of the user along with an identification of the one or more social network connections of the user that endorsed the at least one document.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising presenting at least a portion of the plurality of algorithmically-derived search results that satisfy the received search query on the search engine results page.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein determining that data associated with the social network connections of the user is available comprises determining that the user is engaged in an active session with a social networking application associated with the data.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the data associated with the social network connections of the user is retrieved from a data store associated with the social networking application.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein receiving the search query from the user comprises receiving the search query via a user interface associated with a search application, and wherein the data associated with the social network connections of the user is retrieved from a data store associated with the search application.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein presenting an identifier of the at least one document on a search engine results page comprises presenting an identifier of the at least one document on a search engine results page when the relevance score meets or exceeds a threshold relevance score.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

presenting at least a portion of the plurality of algorithmically-derived search results that satisfy the received search query on the search engine results page; and

utilizing a relevance score of the at least one document to determine placement of the at least one document on the search engine results page relative to the presented algorithmically-derived search results.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the social network connections of the user include first degree social network connections.

18. A system for presenting, in association with search engine results pages, supplemental results in response to search queries with indications that such supplemental results have been endorsed by a user and/or social network connections of the user, the system comprising:

a computing device associated with a search engine having one or more processors and one or more computer-readable storage media; and

a data store coupled with the search engine,

wherein the search engine;

receives a search query from the user;

determines that data associated with social network connections of the user is available;

determines a plurality of algorithmically-derived search results that satisfy the received search query;

determines first and second documents that satisfy the received search query and that have been endorsed by one or more of the social network connections of the user, wherein an endorsement made by the user and/or one or more of the social network connections of a different document than the first document is determined as being an endorsement of the first document made by the user and/or one or more of the social network connections based on the at least one document being mapped to a URL of the different document, the at least one document being determined independent of the plurality of algorithmically-derived search results; and

presents identifiers of the first and second documents on a search engine results page with annotations comprising indications that the first and second documents have been endorsed by the user and/or the one or more of the social network connections of the user along with identifications of the one or more social network connections of the user that were determined as having endorsed the first and second documents, wherein the annotations of the first and second documents are of different annotation types based on different manners in which the first and second documents were determined as having been endorsed by the user and/or one or more of the social network connections.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the search engine further assigns a relevance score to the first document, the relevance score being based, at least in part, on endorsement data of the first document, and wherein upon the search engine presenting an identifier of the first document on a search engine results page, presented is also an identifier of the first document on a search engine results page when the relevance score meets or exceeds a threshold relevance score.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the search engine further:

presents at least a portion of the plurality of algorithmically-derived search results that satisfy the received search query on the search engine results page; and

utilizes a relevance score of the first document to determine placement of the first document on the search engine results page relative to the presented algorithmically-derived search results.