Query refinement in a browser toolbar

• US 9,189,550 B2
• Filed: 11/17/2011
• Issued: 11/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Edgar, Timothy, Chitnis, Ambarish, White, Ryen William, Dmitriev, Pavel, Dan, Ovidiu, Ageeru, Rajanikanth, Tang, Lin
• Primary Examiner(s): Hasan, Syed
• Application Number:
  US13/299,089
• Publication Number:
  US 20130132357A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,461 Days
• Field of Search: 707/765
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9532 Query formulation

Abstract

Embodiment described herein are generally directed to a toolbar extension of a web browser that grabs a user'"'"'s search engine query and suggests a refined search query known to yield better search results. The toolbar recognizes the web page the user is on as being associated with a search engine and retrieves the user'"'"'s search query. The toolbar interacts with a refinement component on a server, and the refinement component determines a refined search query based on confidence scores assigned to data mined from a data center affiliated with different search engine (one related to the toolbar). The refined search query is returned and displayed in a search field of the toolbar, allowing the user to easily run the refined search on the different search engine.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for displaying a refined search query in a web browser on a client computing device, the method comprising:

receiving, by the web browser, a search query input into a web-page search field provided by a displayed web page;

recognizing, by a toolbar of the web browser, that the displayed web page is associated with a search engine by comparing at least a portion of a URL of the displayed web page with a list of text strings of URLs identified as search engines and by correlating the at least a portion of the URL with one or more text strings included in the list of text strings, the toolbar including a toolbar search field separate from the web-page search field;

identifying, by the toolbar, a first vertical that is selected to be applied to the search query;

communicating a request to send a refined search query when the search query is sent to the search engine, wherein the request specifies the first vertical;

receiving the refined search query that specifies a second vertical, which is different from the first vertical; and

in the web browser, displaying search results for the search query at the same time as displaying the refined search query in the toolbar search field.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a user indication to search for the refined search query; and

requesting a search of the refined search query from a different search engine that is different from the search engine.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving search results for the refined search query from the different search engine; and

displaying the search results for the refined search query in an impression of the different search engine.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the toolbar search field comprises a portion of the toolbar that is included within the browser window and that does not overlap the displayed web page.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the list of text strings of URLs is stored on the client computing device in an expression file.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, on a server, the request to send the refined search queries based on the search query;

accessing one or more tables populated with query terms correlated to refined query terms;

from the refined query terms, selecting the at least one refined search query; and

transmitting the at least one refined search query.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the refined search query is selected using confidence scores associated with each of the refined query terms.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein each confidence score is based on at least one member of a group comprising:

a related-search clickthrough rate (CTR) indicating the frequency users have historically opted to search for at least one of the refined query terms;

a follow-up CTR indicating the frequency users have historically clicked a result stemming from a search of the at least one of the refined query terms;

a search engine switching rate; and

a reformulation rate.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first vertical and the second vertical indicate a vertical search engine that searches for particular types of online content.

10. A computer-memory device storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method for displaying a refined search query in a web browser, the method comprising:

receiving a search query in a web-page search field displayed in the web browser, which includes a toolbar having a toolbar search field separate from the web-page search field, wherein the web-page search field provides a first portal to a first search engine hosted at a first web domain and wherein the toolbar search field provides a second portal to a second search engine hosted at a second web domain, which is different than the first web domain;

recognizing that a web page providing the web-page search field is associated with the first search engine by comparing at least a portion of a URL of the displayed web page with a list of text strings of URLs identified as search engines and by correlating the at least a portion of the URL with one or more text strings included in the list of text strings;

communicating to the second search engine a request to send a refined search query when the search query is sent to the first search engine;

receiving the refined search query from the second search engine and search results from the first search engine deemed relevant to the search query; and

displaying the search results from the first search engine hosted at the first web domain in a content-viewing portion of the web browser simultaneous with the refined search query from the second search engine hosted at the second web domain, which is displayed in the toolbar search field.

11. The device of claim 10, further comprising:

while displaying the search results provided by the first search engine hosted at the first web domain, receiving an indication to search for the refined search query;

submitting the refined search query to the second search engine hosted at the second web domain different than the first web domain; and

displaying results for the refined search query in a results page generated and provided by the second search engine.

12. The device of claim 10, wherein comparing at least a portion of the URL of the displayed web page with the list of text strings of URLs identified as search engines includes identifying a URL of the web page with an entry in a table associated with the toolbar.

13. The device of claim 10, wherein recognizing the web page is associated with the first search engine further comprises analyzing content of the web page.

14. A system including a processor that is coupled with a computer-memory device and that executes computer-executable instructions stored on the computer-storage device to perform operations comprising:

receiving a search query input into a web-page search field that is displayed by the web browser in a displayed web page, wherein the web-page search field provides a first portal to a first search engine hosted at a first web domain;

recognizing, by a toolbar of the web browser, that the displayed web page is associated with a the first search engine by comparing at least a portion of a URL of the displayed web page with a list of text strings of URLs identified as search engines and by correlating the at least a portion of the URL with one or more text strings included in the list of text strings, the toolbar including a toolbar search field that is separate from the web-page search field and that provides a second portal to a second search engine hosted at a second web domain, which is different than the first web domain;

identifying, by the toolbar, a first vertical that is selected to be applied to the search query;

communicating a request to send a refined search query when the search query is sent to the first search engine, wherein the request specifies the first vertical;

receiving the refined search query, which includes a second vertical different from the first vertical and is recommended to be submitted to the second search engine, and search results deemed relevant by the first search engine to the search query; and

displaying the search results in a content-viewing portion of the web browser simultaneous with the refined search query, which is displayed in the toolbar search field.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein recognizing, by the toolbar of the browser, comprises:

accessing an expression file maintained by the web browser by to match a webpage address of the web page to the first search engine.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the refined search query includes a recommendation to search in the second vertical that is different from the first vertical to which the search query was directed.