Presenting forked auto-completions

• US 9,317,605 B1
• Filed: 03/21/2012
• Issued: 04/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Zivkovic, Dragan, Hong, Peter Jin, Tajima, Hidetoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Ehichioya, Fred I
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mobin, Hasanul
• Application Number:
  US13/426,163
• Time in Patent Office: 1,490 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for presenting forked auto-completions. In one aspect, a method includes receiving characters from a user device, obtaining an auto-completion that corresponds to the received characters, obtaining corpora and respective corpus scores associated with the auto-completion, selecting corpora based on the corpus scores, and providing the user device with data identifying the auto-completion and the selected corpora.

Claims

1. A method performed by data processing apparatus, the method comprising:

receiving one or more characters from a user device;

obtaining an auto-completion corresponding to the one or more characters;

obtaining data identifying multiple corpora and a respective corpus score associated with the auto-completion for each identified corpus;

selecting a first corpus of the multiple corpora whose corpus score satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora and excludes the first corpus; and

providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus,

wherein the universal search corpus includes two or more of a web search corpus, a places search corpus, a literature search corpus, a patent search corpus, an images search corpus, a videos search corpus, a news search corpus, a shopping search corpus, and a blocs search corpus.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characters make up a partial query term.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characters are included in an auto-completion request that is received from the user device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining data identifying two or more corpora comprises obtaining data identifying two or more of:

a web search corpus;

a places search corpus;

a literature search corpus;

a patent search corpus;

an images search corpus;

a videos search corpus;

a news search corpus;

a shopping search corpus; and

a blogs search corpus.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein selection, by a user, of the first drop down entry or the second drop down entry causes presentation of at least one resource corresponding to the auto-completion and the corpus to which the selected drop down entry corresponds.

27. The method of claim 1, wherein providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing a first user-selectable option for initiating a search of items in the first corpus using the auto-completion as a query; and

providing a second user-selectable option for initiating a search of items in the universal search corpus using the auto-completion as a query.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the universal search corpus includes all of the multiple corpora.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the universal search corpus includes the web search corpus, the places search corpus, the literature search corpus, the patent search corpus, the images search corpus, the videos search corpus, the news search corpus, the shopping search corpus, and the blocs search corpus.

32. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting a first corpus of the multiple corpora whose corpus score satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora comprises:

determining that, among the respective corpus scores for the multiple corpora, the corpus score of the first corpus is the only corpus score that satisfies the threshold; and

based on determining that the respective score of the first corpus is the only corpus score that satisfies the threshold, selecting the universal search corpus that includes the two or more of the multiple corpora.

33. The method of claim 1, comprising:

obtaining a second auto-completion corresponding to the one or more characters; and

providing, for display and to the user device, a third drop down entry that indicates an instance of the second auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus along with the first drop down entry that indicates the first instance of the auto-completion and that includes the icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and the second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus.

34. The method of claim 1, wherein the respective corpus score for the first corpus is based on a measure of past user behavior after submitting a query that has one or more terms in common with the obtained auto-completion.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the measure of past user behavior is based only on behavior of a user who provided the one or more characters.

36. The method of claim 1, wherein providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing, for display in the drop down menu and to the user device, a user interface element representing the universal search corpus adjacent to the second instance of the auto-completion.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the user interface element representing the universal search corpus is located after the second instance of the auto-completion.

38. The method of claim 1, wherein the icon representing the first corpus is located after the first instance of the auto-completion.

6. A method performed by data processing apparatus, the method comprising:

receiving one or more characters from a user;

transmitting the one or more characters to a forking engine;

receiving, from the forking engine, data identifying (i) an auto-completion that corresponds to the one or more characters, and (ii) at least a first corpus, selected from a set of multiple corpora, that is associated with the auto-completion and to a first corpus score that satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora and excludes the first corpus; and

providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first representation of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus,

wherein the universal search corpus includes two or more of a web search corpus, a places search corpus, a literature search corpus, a patent search corpus, an images search corpus, a videos search corpus, a news search corpus, a shopping search corpus, and a blogs search corpus.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the one or more characters are received through a search box; and

the first drop down entry that indicates the first representation of the auto-completion and that includes the icon representing the first corpus, and the second drop down entry that indicates the second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus are displayed in the drop down menu beneath the search box.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing, for display in a first row of the drop down menu, the first drop down entry; and

providing, for display in a second row of the drop down menu, the second drop down entry.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the one or more characters are received through a search box; and

providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first representation of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises;

providing, for display adjacent to the search box, a first selectable control that includes the icon representing the first corpus and a second selectable control that identifies the universal search corpus.

10. A system comprising:

a data processing apparatus; and

a data store storing instructions executable by the data processing apparatus that upon execution by the data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising;

receiving one or more characters from a user device;

obtaining an auto-completion corresponding to the one or more characters;

obtaining data identifying multiple corpora and a respective corpus score associated with the auto-completion for each identified corpus;

selecting a first corpus of the multiple corpora whose corpus score satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora and excludes the first corpus; and

providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus,

wherein the universal search corpus includes two or more of a web search corpus, a places search corpus, a literature search corpus, a patent search corpus, an images search corpus, a videos search corpus, a news search corpus, a shopping search corpus, and a blogs search corpus.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more characters make up a partial query term.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more characters are included in an auto-completion request that is received from the user device.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein obtaining data identifying two or more corpora comprises obtaining data identifying two or more of:

a web search corpus;

a places search corpus;

a literature search corpus;

a patent search corpus;

an images search corpus;

a videos search corpus;

a news search corpus;

a shopping search corpus; and

a blogs search corpus.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein selection, by a user, of the first drop down entry or the second drop down entry causes presentation of at least one resource corresponding to the auto-completion and the corpus to which the selected drop down entry corresponds.

28. The system of claim 10, wherein providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing a first user-selectable option for initiating a search of items in the first corpus using the auto-completion as a query; and

providing a second user-selectable option for initiating a search of items in the universal search corpus using the auto-completion as a query.

15. A system comprising:

a data processing apparatus; and

a data store storing instructions executable by the data processing apparatus that upon execution by the data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising;

receiving one or more characters from a user;

transmitting the one or more characters to a forking engine;

receiving, from the forking engine, data identifying (i) an auto-completion that corresponds to the one or more characters, and (ii) at least a first corpus, selected from a set of multiple corpora, that is associated with the auto-completion and to a first corpus score that satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora and excludes the first corpus; and

providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first representation of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus,

wherein the universal search corpus includes two or more of a web search corpus, a places search corpus, a literature search corpus, a patent search corpus, an images search corpus, a videos search corpus, a news search corpus, a shopping search corpus, and a blogs search corpus.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein:

the one or more characters are received through a search box; and

the first drop down entry that indicates the first representation of the auto-completion and that includes the icon representing the first corpus, and the second drop down entry that indicates the second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus are displayed in the drop down menu beneath the search box.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing, for display in a first row of the drop down menu, the first drop down entry; and

providing, for display in a second row of the drop down menu, the second drop down entry.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein:

the one or more characters are received through a search box; and

providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first representation of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises;

providing, for display adjacent to the search box, a first selectable control that includes the icon representing the first corpus and a second selectable control that identifies the universal search corpus.

19. A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving one or more characters from a user device;

obtaining an auto-completion corresponding to the one or more characters;

obtaining data identifying multiple corpora and a respective corpus score associated with the auto-completion for each identified corpus;

selecting a first corpus of the multiple corpora whose corpus score satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora and excludes the first corpus; and

providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus,

wherein the universal search corpus includes two or more of a web search corpus, a places search corpus, a literature search corpus, a patent search corpus, an images search corpus, a videos search corpus, a news search corpus, a shopping search corpus, and a blocs search corpus.

20. The computer storage medium of claim 19, wherein the one or more characters make up a partial query term.

21. The computer storage medium of claim 19, wherein the one or more characters are included in an auto-completion request that is received from the user device.

22. The computer storage medium of claim 19, wherein obtaining data identifying two or more corpora comprises obtaining data identifying two or more of:

a web search corpus;

a places search corpus;

a literature search corpus;

a patent search corpus;

an images search corpus;

a videos search corpus;

a news search corpus;

a shopping search corpus; and

a blogs search corpus.

23. The computer storage medium of claim 19, wherein

selection, by a user, of the first drop down entry or the second drop down entry causes presentation of at least one resource corresponding to the auto-completion and the corpus to which the selected drop down entry corresponds.

29. The computer storage medium of claim 19, providing, for display in a drop-down menu and to the user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first instance of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first instance of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second instance of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing a first user-selectable option for initiating a search of items in the first corpus using the auto-completion as a query; and

providing a second user-selectable option for initiating a search of items in the universal search corpus using the auto-completion as a query.

24. A non-transitory computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by a data processing apparatus cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving one or more characters from a user;

transmitting the one or more characters to a forking engine;

receiving, from the forking engine, data identifying (i) an auto-completion that corresponds to the one or more characters, and (ii) at least a first corpus, selected from a set of multiple corpora, that is associated with the auto-completion and to a first corpus score that satisfies a threshold and a universal search corpus that includes two or more of the multiple corpora and excludes the first corpus; and

providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus adjacent to the first representation of the auto-completion, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus,

wherein the universal search corpus includes two or more of a web search corpus, a places search corpus, a literature search corpus, a patent search corpus, an images search corpus, a videos search corpus, a news search corpus, a shopping search corpus, and a blogs search corpus.

25. The computer storage medium of claim 24, wherein:

the one or more characters are received through a search box; and

the first drop down entry that indicates the first representation of the auto-completion and that includes the icon representing the first corpus, and the second drop down entry that indicates the second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus are displayed in the drop down menu beneath the search box.

26. The computer storage medium of claim 24, wherein providing, for display in a drop down menu and to a user device, a first drop down entry that indicates a first representation of the auto-completion and that includes an icon representing the first corpus, and a second drop down entry that indicates a second representation of the auto-completion that corresponds to the universal search corpus and that excludes the icon representing the first corpus comprises:

providing, for display in a first row of the drop down menu, the first drop down entry; and

providing, for display in a second row of the drop down menu, the second drop down entry.