Navigation bar  
       
Search AIT


Only match whole words
  

Google patent list

A programmable search engine system is programmable by a variety of different entities, such as client devices and vertical content sites to customize search results for users. Context files store instructions for controlling the operations of the programmable search engine. The context files are processed by various context processors, which use the instructions therein to provide various pre-processing, post-processing, and search engine control operations. Spam related and biased contexts and search results are identified using offline and query time processing stages, and the context files from vertical content providers associated with such spam and biased context and results are excluded from processing on direct user queries.
Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, to provide clustering of users in which users are each represented as a set of elements representing items, e.g., items selected by users using a system. In one aspect, a program operates to obtain a respective interest set for each of multiple users, each interest set representing items in which the respective user expressed interest; for each of the users, to determine k hash values of the respective interest set, wherein the i-th hash value is a minimum value under a corresponding i-th hash function; and to assign each of the multiple users to each of the respective k clusters established for the respective user, the i-th cluster being represented by the i-th hash value. The assignment of each of the users to k clusters is done without regard to the assignment of any of the other users to k clusters.
A programmable search engine system is programmable by a variety of different entities, such as client devices and vertical content sites to customize search results for users. Context files store instructions for controlling the operations of the programmable search engine. The contest files are processed by various context processors, which use the instructions therein to provide various pre-processing, post-processing, and search engine control operations.
Once a search query is received from a user, a standard index is searched based on the search query. The standard index forms part of a set of replicated standard indexes having multiple instances of the standard index. A signal is then determined based on the search of the standard index. When the received signal meets predefined criteria, an extended index is searched. The extended index forms part of a set of extended indexes having at least one instance of the extended index. There are fewer instances of the extended index than instances of the standard index. Extended search results are then obtained from the extended index and at least a portion of the extended search results is transmitted towards a user.
Systems and methods automatically scan content, such as advertisements, for a list of terms and/or phrases that may not be allowed in the content. In one implementation, the terms and/or phrases include trademarks. In this implementation, incoming advertisements may be automatically scanned for the presence of trademarks.
In one embodiment, a method for transferring web browser data between web browsers includes collecting browser data pertaining to a first web browser, packaging the browser data into an intermediate format, and storing the packaged data for a subsequent import into a second web browser.
A user's prior searching and browsing activities are recorded for subsequent use. A user may examine the user's prior searching and browsing activities in a number of different ways, including indications of the user's prior activities related to advertisements. A set of search results may be modified in accordance with the user's historical activities. The user's activities may be examined to identify a set of preferred locations. The user's set of activities may be shared with one or more other users. The set of preferred locations presented to the user may be enhanced to include the preferred locations of one or more other users. A user's browsing activities may be monitored from one or more different client devices or client application. A user's browsing volume may be graphically displayed.
Methods and systems for providing current email addresses or contact information to members within a social network are described. In one described method, an email program application requests an email address for a member within a social network. Using profile information associated with the member, the email address is provided to the email program application which sent the request. The email address is then entered into the send-to parameter field of an email message. In another described method, contact information associated with a first member of a social can be provided to a second member of the social network. The contact information is provided if the relationship between the first and second members is an authorized relationship. The contact information associated with the first member can be used to update the contact information for the first member in an electronic address book associated with the second member.
An information retrieval system includes a query revision architecture providing one or more query revisers, each of which implements a query revision strategy. A query rank reviser suggests known highly-ranked queries as revisions to a first query by initially assigning a rank to all queries, and identifying a set of known highly-ranked queries (KHRQ). Queries with a strong probability of being revised to a KHRQ are identified as nearby queries (NQ). Alternative queries that are KHRQs are provided as candidate revisions for a given query. For alternative queries that are NQs, the corresponding known highly-ranked queries are provided as candidate revisions.
In one embodiment, data from an electronic device is identified. The data may describe an electronic device (e.g. a hardware or software device) on which a document was created or modified, the subject matter of a document, the state of a document, or the like. Content relating to the electronic device is obtained based on the data. The content may be obtained in response to viewing, editing, printing, emailing or other accessing and/or processing of the document.
An advertiser's management of an advertising campaign may be assisted by (a) accepting information defining a plurality of audience segments to which an advertisement may be served, (b) accepting a first offer, and (c) determining, using the first offer, a second offer associated with at least one of the plurality of audience segments. The act of determining a second offer associated with one of the plurality of audience segments may use an indication of value assigned to the one audience segment. The indication of value may be automatically determined, and/or provided by an advertiser. The indication of value may be expressed as functions, rules, and/or parameter values. The information defining a plurality of audience segments may be one or more of (a) location information, (b) user information, (c) temporal information, and (d) client device information.
Methods and systems for members of a member network to create and target advertisement to other members of the member network. A member can target advertisement to other members in the member network by establishing a member profile that includes associations and/or nexuses with the targeted members. Fees can be charged to members who create and disseminate advertisement to other members in the member network.
As online ads are becoming technically and artistically more sophisticated, advertisers will need a way to efficiently request assistance with ad creations that offer richer ad formats. An online ad business environment helps connect advertisers with ad service providers (also called agents or advisors) who can meet their needs for more complex and sophisticated ad creatives. The online ad business network may use a job listing board where advertisers can enter request for assistance and agent can view them. The business network may also include an agent directory where agents can post their profiles and services and advertisers can view them. Using the job listing board and agent directory, advertisers and agent can contact each other through contact operations available in the business network, and enter into business relationships. A payment from an advertiser to an agent may be made via the business network. The amount of compensation paid to the agent by the business network need not be equal to the amount of payment received by the advertiser.
A system facilitates the performance of a record append operation. The system may include a primary replica and one or more secondary replicas that store copies of data. The primary and secondary replicas may receive a record to be appended to the data and a record append request that identifies the record to be appended to the data. The primary and secondary replicas may append the record to the data, possibly at the same offset. If multiple record append requests are concurrently received, the requests may be serialized to establish an order for the requests.
A search and recommendation system employs the preferences and profiles of individual users and groups within a community of users, as well as information derived from categorically organized content pointers, to augment electronic commerce related searches, re-rank search results, and provide recommendations for commerce related objects based on an initial subject-matter query and an interaction history of a user. The search and recommendation system operates in the context of a content pointer manager, which stores individual users' content pointers (some of which may be published or shared for group use) on a centralized content pointer database connected to a network. The shared content pointer manager is implemented as a distributed program, portions of which operate on users' terminals and other portions of which operate on the centralized content pointer database. A user's content pointers are organized in accordance with a local topical categorical hierarchy. The hierarchical organization is used to define a relevance context within which returned objects are evaluated and ordered.
Features that may be used to represent relevance information (e.g., properties, characteristics, etc.) of an entity, such as a document or concept for example, may be associated with the document by accepting an identifier that identifies a document; obtaining search query information (and/or other serving parameter information) related to the document using the document identifier, determining features using the obtained query information (and/or other serving parameter information), and associating the features determined with the document. Weights of such features may be similarly determined. The weights may be determined using scores. The scores may be a function of one or more of whether the document was selected, a user dwell time on a selected document, whether or not a conversion occurred with respect to the document, etc. The document may be a Web page. The features may be n-grams. The relevance information of the document may be used to target the serving of advertisements with the document.
The relevancy of ads may be increased, and opportunities to serve an ad that might otherwise be missed may be exploited by (i) accepting broad targeting information, to be used for serving an ad, from an advertiser, (ii) serving the ad using the broad targeting information, (iii) logging search query terms (or some other information, such as concepts, concept keywords, etc.) associated with the serving of the ad, and (iv) generating one or more candidate targeting keywords or phrases for the ad using the logged search query terms. At least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be provided as targeting information for the ad. Alternatively, at least one of the candidate targeting keywords or phrases may be presented to the advertiser. Advertiser input with respect to the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) presented may then be accepted. Zero or more of the candidate targeting keyword(s) or phrase(s) may be provided as targeting information for the ad, in accordance with the accepted advertiser input. Cost information (e.g., average cost per selection, average cost per conversion, total costs, etc.) may be presented in association with the candidate targeting information.
Transportation routing (US20060149461)
A computer-implemented method of providing personalized route information involves gathering a plurality of past location indicators over time for a wireless client device, determining a future driving objective using the plurality of previously-gathered location indicators, obtaining real-time traffic data for an area proximate to the determined driving objective, and generating a suggested route for the driving objective using the near real-time traffic data.
Ad rendering parameters for a set of two or more ads may be determined by (a) accepting, for a set of two or more ads, ad information which includes at least one ad feature having a value that depends on ad rendering parameters, and (b) determining ad rendering parameters for at least one ad from the set of two or more ads using the accepted ad information. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may use accepted ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering constraints may include space available for rendering the ads, a footprint available for rendering the ads, and/or a maximum number of ads permitted to be rendered. The act of determining ad rendering parameters may include maximizing a value associated with serving at least one ad from the set of two or more ads with ad rendering parameters subject to the ad rendering constraints. The ad rendering parameters may include sizes of the served ads, and/or a layout of the served ads.
Advertisement approval (US20060149623)
An advertisement for use with an online ad serving system may be automatically checked for compliance with one or more policies of the online ad serving system. If the advertisement is approved, then it is allowed by be served by the ad serving system. Follow up checks of the advertisement may be scheduled. One follow up check may be to test a landing page of the advertisement for compliance with policies. If the advertisement is not approved, hints for making the ad comply with one or more violated policies may be provided to an advertiser associated with the ad, and/or an ad serving system customer service representative. Determining whether or not to approve the advertisement may include determining violations of one or more policies by the advertisement, and, for each of the violations, determining whether or not to exempt the violation.
Sets of local, (e.g., online) ads may be generated by obtaining sets of information about (e.g., local) establishments, each set including a business address information and/or a telephone number, (b) determining, for each of the sets, a location using at least one of at least a portion of the business address information and at least a portion of the telephone number, and (c) generating, for each of the sets, an ad that includes targeting information that targets the serving of the ad to queries related to the determined location. A query, including information about a location of a client device, may be accepted and at least one of the generated ads that includes targeting information that targets the location of the client device may be determined.
A system determines documents that are associated with a location, identifies a group of signals associated with each of the documents, and determines authoritativeness of the documents for the location based on the signals.
A document may be segmented based on a visual model of the document. The visual model is determined according to an amount of visual white space or gaps that are in the document. In one implementation, the visual model is used to identify a hierarchical structure of the document, which may then be used to segment the document.
A local search engine efficiently indexes documents relevant to a geographical area by indexing, for each document, multiple location identifiers that collectively define an aggregate geographic region. When creating the index, the search engine may determine a set of geographical areas surrounding a geographical area relevant to a document and associate references to the set of geographical areas with the document index.
A location classifier generates location information based on textual strings in input text. The location information defines potential geographical relevance of the input text. In determining the location information, the location classifier may receive at least one geo-relevance profile associated with at least one string in the input text, obtain a combined geo-relevance profile for the document from the at least one geo-relevance profile, and determine geographical relevance of the input text based on the combined geo-relevance profile.
Location extraction (20060149734)
A system receives a search query that includes a set of search terms, determines whether at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of a geographic area, and determines whether the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area when at least one of the search terms corresponds to the name of the geographic area. The system performs a local search, based on one or more of the search terms, to identify documents associated with the geographic area when the geographic area corresponds to an unambiguous geographic area.
Local item extraction (US20060149565)
A system identifies a document that includes an address and locates business information in the document. The system assigns a confidence score to the business information, where the confidence score relates to a probability that the business information is associated with the address. The system determines whether to associate the business information with the address based on the assigned confidence score.
A system may facilitate performance of a data-modifying operation in a file network that includes multiple servers that store replicas of data. One of the servers may serve as a primary replica for one of the replicas of data and at least one other one of the servers may serve as at least one secondary replica for the replica of data. The system may send data associated with the data-modifying operation to the primary replica and the at least one secondary replica based on a network topology and independently send a data-modifying control signal that requests execution of the data-modifying operation using the data associated with the data-modifying operation to the primary replica and the at least one secondary replica.
A method includes recognizing an item within a first document based on a pattern associated with the item but not the exact content of the item. The method further includes identifying a link for the item and providing a second document that includes information associated with the item when the link for the item is selected.
The embodiments disclosed herein include new, more efficient ways to collect product reviews from the Internet, aggregate reviews for the same product, and provide an aggregated review to end users in a searchable format. One aspect of the invention is a graphical user interface on a computer that includes a plurality of portions of reviews for a product and a search input area for entering search terms to search for reviews of the product that contain the search terms.
A system having a resource manager, a plurality of masters, and a plurality of slaves, interconnected by a communications network. To distribute data, a master determined that a destination slave of the plurality slaves requires data. The master then generates a list of slaves from which to transfer the data to the destination slave. The master transmits the list to the resource manager. The resource manager is configured to select a source slave from the list based on available system resources. Once a source is selected by the resource manager, the master receives an instruction from the resource manager to initiate a transfer of the data from the source slave to the destination slave. The master then transmits an instruction to commence the transfer.
A system and method for detecting undesired electronic messages (e.g., spam) using concept categorization of hyperlinks is disclosed. A server receives an electronic message and retrieves web pages that correspond to hyperlinks in the message. The server performs concept categorization on the retrieved web pages based on semantic relationships in the received information to determine whether the electronic message meets predefined criteria associated with undesired messages.
An electonic document retrieval system and method for a collection of information distributed over a network having documents stored in web or document servers in which an access control list relates user identification to documents to which a user has access. No access control lists are contained in the documents themselves nor are comparisons made between lists of users, with their access levels, and the classifications of documents. Rather, by the use of URLs or pointers, it is possible to associate every document to which a user has access with the user identification number or code. URLs have a hierchical format which allows partial URLs to indicate levels of access. HTTP protocol, FTP and CGI protocol employ URL calls for documents and can use the access control method and system of the present invention. When a search query is applied to a query server, a list of hits is returned, together with pertinent URLs. The query server consults each access control list associated with each document server, to present to the user only those URLs for which he has a proper access level. Other URLs for which the user does not have proper access are kept hidden from the user.
A search and recommendation system employs the preferences and profiles of individual users and groups within a community of users, as well as information derived from categorically organized content pointers, to augment Internet searches, re-rank search results, and provide recommendations for objects based on an initial subject-matter query. The search and recommendation system operates in the context of a content pointer manager, which stores individual users' content pointers (some of which may be published or shared for group use) on a centralized content pointer database connected to the Internet. The shared content pointer manager is implemented as a distributed program, portions of which operate on users' terminals and other portions of which operate on the centralized content pointer database. A user's content pointers are organized in accordance with a local topical categorical hierarchy. The hierarchical organization is used to define a relevance context within which returned objects are evaluated and ordered.
A micro-payment system has buyers, sellers, and a broker. The buyers establish accounts with the broker and provide payment information allowing the broker to invoice the buyers. The sellers establish accounts with the brokers and specify terms for accessing items, including electronic content, available from the sellers. The sellers also provide payment information that allows the broker to credit the sellers for sales of the items. The broker aggregates the buyers' micro-payment purchases and invoices the buyers. The broker also aggregates the sellers' micro-payment sales and credits the sellers.
A system provides search results from a voice search query. The system receives a voice search query from a user, derives one or more recognition hypotheses, each being associated with a weight, from the voice search query, and constructs a weighted boolean query using the recognition hypotheses. The system then provides the weighted boolean query to a search system and provides the results of the search system to a user.
A system identifies a document relating to a search term, where the document includes a set of structural elements. The system determines a distribution of occurrences of the search term in the document, identifies one of the structural elements based on the distribution of occurrences of the search term in the document, and presents information associated with the identified structural element.
A system identifies a document and provides an excerpt page corresponding to the document. The excerpt page includes a page of the document and a set of links to sections of the document. One of the links corresponds to a section containing the page and includes text associated with the link, a next page element to permit a next page in the document to be presented, and a previous page element to permit a previous page in the document to be presented. The next page element and the previous page element are visually associated with the text associated with the link.
Ads better targeted to individual users can be determined by using (recent) navigation history. User navigation (e.g., Web browsing) may be tracked, recorded and maintained. The navigation history information, and perhaps information about a current document, may be used to determine content-relevant and personalized ads. By doing so the ads seen by the user are more interesting and relevant to a current user interest inferred from their (recent) navigation.
To help advertisers to manage their online advertising, some business metric, such as ROI, profit, gross profit, etc., may be estimated and/or tracked with respect to an ad campaign, or a portion of the ad campaign. An advertiser may provide a business metric target, such as a target ROI, a target gross profit, a target profit, etc. An ad delivery system may then adjust information in an ad campaign (or a portion of an ad campaign) in an effort to meet the target. Similarly, an advertiser may provide a goal, such as maximizing or minimizing a business metric. The ad delivery system may then adjust information in an ad campaign (or a portion of an ad campaign) in an effort to meet the goal. The targets or goals may be subject to one or more constraints. The advertiser may provide limits on values of one or more business metrics. The ad delivery system may then turn off, or govern, the delivery of ads if the limits are violated.
In one embodiment, a method for processing queries initiated by users of mobile devices includes receiving an incoming message containing a query initiated be a user of a mobile device, and extracting the query from the received message. The message further includes obtaining a result of the query and creating an outgoing message with the result of the query for delivery to the mobile device.
A method includes receiving a search query, identifying a document based on the search query, and providing a search result based on the document. The search result includes, for example, an image associated with the document, an excerpt from the document that is associated with the search query, and links to other excerpts in the document that are associated with the search query. The method may also include providing other information associated with the document.
Various methods, systems, and apparatuses for customizing travel actions in travel directions are disclosed. One method and apparatus includes providing a first set of travel directions to a user, the travel directions including at least one travel action, receiving at least one selected travel action and a replacement travel action from the user associated with the first set of travel directions, and outputting a second set of travel directions associated with the at least one selected travel action and the replacement travel action. Another method and apparatus includes obtaining travel directions based on a start point and an end point, comparing travel actions from the travel directions with a customization file, the customization file including at least one selected travel action and a replacement travel action, determining that at least one travel action in the travel directions is the same as the at least one selected travel action, and integrating the replacement travel action into the travel directions.
A software module is presented that enables a person to determine the relevance of an electronic document while preventing the person from making a complete copy of the document. In one embodiment, this is accomplished by displaying an image that represents a region of interest and conveys the context of the region of interest within the document while distorting other portions of the document. In one embodiment, the software module is used in conjunction with a search engine to generate an image of a search result document.
In one embodiment, a connection of a client device to a wireless access point is identified. Further, the appearance of a screen presented on the client device is modified to reflect the brand associated with a provider of the wireless access point.
Methods and system to provide advertisements in a view of an end user accessing a wireless access point. The advertisements are related to the WAP based on a predetermined criterion.
Methods and system for providing wireless access at a reduced rate. In one embodiment, access to a WAP is provided to an end-user at a rate subsidized by a first entity. The first entity includes advertisements in an end-user view.
A client assistant, sometimes called a browser helper, runs on a client computer. The client assistant monitors a user's browsing activities and infers one or more next documents that are most likely to be requested by the user. The client assistant attempts to locate a fresh copy of the inferred next document within a client cache. If a fresh copy of the inferred document is not found in the client cache, the client assistant submits a document download request to a document server.
A multi-stage query processing system and method enables multi-stage query scoring, including "snippet" generation, through incremental document reconstruction facilitated by a multi-tiered mapping scheme. At one or more stages of a multi-stage query processing system a set of relevancy scores are used to select a subset of documents for presentation as an ordered list to a user. The set of relevancy scores can be derived in part from one or more sets of relevancy scores determined in prior stages of the multi-stage query processing system. In some embodiments, the multi-stage query processing system is capable of executing one or more passes on a user query, and using information from each pass to expand the user query for use in a subsequent pass to improve the relevancy of documents in the ordered list.
An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are identified that predict the presence of other phrases in documents. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases. Related phrases and phrase extensions are also identified. Phrases in a query are identified and used to retrieve and rank documents. Phrases are also used to cluster documents in the search results, create document descriptions, and eliminate duplicate documents from the serach results, and from the index.
A portable device having scanning, imaging or other data-capture capability is described. In some cases, the portable device can indicate to the user when enough information has been captured to uniquely identify a source document. In some cases, the portable device calculates timestamps and location-stamps indicating when and where a data capture occurred. In some cases, the portable device is controlled by gestures. In some cases, the portable scanning device has associated billing and content/service subscription information.
The serving of one or more ads to a user device considers determined characteristics of a user device, such as whether or not the user device supports telephone calls. At least some ads may include call-on-select functionality. When such an ad is selected (e.g., via a button click), instead of loading a document (e.g., Web page) for rendering, a telephone number associated with the ad can be automatically dialed.
A baseband direct sequence spread spectrum CDMA transceiver. The data signal is modulated with a Hadamard function having pseudorandomly scrambled rows. This data signal is then broadcast baseband, absent a carrier, by a relatively short, mismatched antenna. The baseband signal is spread out across the DC to 30 MHz spectrum. A low noise, high gainbandwidth product amplifier boosts the baseband RF signal. A correlator/servo system is used to actively cancel the transmit signal from the received signal. Consequently, the same antenna can be used to receive incoming baseband RF signals as well as transmit baseband RF signals, thereby providing full duplex operation.
Systems and methods to process and correct spelling errors for non-Roman based words such as in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages using a rule-based classifier and a hidden Markov model are disclosed. The method generally includes converting an input entry in a first language such as Chinese to at least one intermediate entry in an intermediate representation, such as pinyin, different from the first language, converting the intermediate entry to at least one possible alternative spelling or form of the input in the first language, and determining that the input entry is either a correct or questionable input entry when a match between the input entry and all possible alternative spellings to the input entry is or is not located, respectively. The questionable input entry may be classified using, for example, a transformation rule based classifier based on transformation rules generated by a transformation rules generator.
A search system monitors the input of a search query by a user. Before the user finishes entering the search query, the search system identifies and sends a portion of the query as a partial query to the search engine. Based on the partial query, the search engine creates a set of predicted queries. This process may take into account prior queries submitted by a community of users, and may take into account a user profile. The predicted queries are be sent back to the user for possible selection. The search system may also cache search results corresponding to one or more of the predicted queries in anticipation of the user selecting one of the predicted queries. The search engine may also return at least a portion of the search results corresponding to one or more of the predicted queries
A method and system are disclosed that provide a variable length snippet when returning snippets in response to a search request. Under conditions where the search query matches a document with a high degree of certainty, a shorter snippet is provided than when the document does not match the search query with a high level certainty. A variable snippet length is also based on an estimate of how likely a user will recognize the document. For example, shorter snippets are provided is a user has recently viewed a document, but longer snippets are provided if a user has not recently viewed the document.
An indexing system in a computer system may include applications, a capture processor, a queue, a search engine, and a display processor. The indexing system captures events of user interactions with the applications. Events are queued and if indexable, indexed and stored for user access through the search engine. Capture components in the capture processor can include a keyboard capture component that processes user keystrokes to determine events. A display capture component captures event data from windows associated with the applications. Display event data can be captured on a polling schedule or based on state changes of window elements. To determine target applications and window applications of interest application profiles and window profiles can be used.
This disclosure provides a method of and service for searching for locations (e.g., web sites) on a network (e.g., the internet). The method begins by inputting a query from a user and searching the internet based on the query to produce search results (comprising web sites) in an order of relevance, where more relevant results are ordered ahead of less relevant results. However, rather than directly reporting the search results to the user as conventional search methodologies do, the invention reorganizes the search results into storylines. More specifically, the invention identifies focused vocabularies from the search results, where each focused vocabulary forms a separate storyline. In addition, the invention maximizes the number of search results that are included in each storyline, minimizes the number of search results that are included in multiple storylines; and also minimizes the number of storylines. Then the invention reports the storylines to the user.
A system and method for using a user profile to order placed content in search results returned by a search engine. The user profile is based on search queries submitted by a user, the user's specific interaction with the documents identified by the search engine and personal information provided by the user. Placed content is ranked by a score based at least in part on a similarity of a particular placed content to the user's profile. User profiles can be created and/or stored on the client side or server side of a client-server network environment.
A Web information manager stores items captured in Web research. It displays groups of such items and enables the user to move them around in the display so as to specify a custom order. It retains a specification of that order not only between times when the group is displayed but sometimes also while the group is being displayed in a different order. The user can therefore return to the custom order even after employing a different order.
Techniques for performing inline searches in an instant messaging environment are provided. A user can implement a web search in an instant messaging window by entering a search query. A search query can be preceded by a predefined search trigger to identify the associated text as the search query. The search query is sent to an Internet search server, which processes the query and gathers search results. One or more of the search results is displayed inline in the instant messaging window to the sender and the recipient. The search result can be in XML or HTML format and can include graphics and hyperlinks.
Keyword suggestions that are category aware (and field proven) may be used to help advertisers better target the serving of their ads, and may reduce unused ad spot inventory. The advertiser can enter ad information, such as a creative, a landing Webpage, other keywords, etc. for example. A keyword facility may use this entered ad information as seed information to infer one or more categories. It may then request that the advertiser confirm or deny some basic feedback information (e.g., categories, Webpage information, etc.).
Advertisement Approval (US20050222902)
Large groups of Web ads may, at least in part, be approved automatically. A subset of a group of ads is selected, and a manual review process is used to determine which ads in the subset are not acceptable, and perhaps the reasons for the disapprovals. A distrust score may then be determined using the ads in the subset that were disapproved. The distrust score may also use the reasons for disapproval. The distrust score may then be compared with a predetermined threshold. If the distrust score is less than the threshold, the ads in the group may be accepted. If the distrust score is equal to or greater than the threshold, the ad group is not automatically accepted.
Ad information, such as ad targeting keywords and/or ad creative content for example, may be determined using aggregated selected document-to-query information associations. For example, popular terms and/or phrases also associated with a selected document may be used as ad targeting keywords and/or ad creative content for an ad having the document as a landing page. Query information may be tracked on a per document level, a per domain level, etc. The determined ad information may be used to automatically populate an ad record, or may be provided to an advertiser as suggested or recommended ad information.
An asynchronous and opportunistically available scheme under which a user's e-mail (or a document including e-mail content) is rendered immediately, and later updated with appropriate advertisements if and when they became available, is described. This scheme ensures that the availability of advertisements will not adversely affect the rendering of the e-mail content.
A search engine provides personalized rankings of search results. A user interest profile identifies topics of interest to a user. Each topic is associated with one or more sites, and a boost value, which can be used to augment an information retrieval score of any document from the site. Search results from any search are provided to the user, with a variable control of the ranking of the results. The results can be ranked by their unboosted information retrieval score, thus reflecting no personalization, or by their fully or partially boosted information retrieval scores. This allows the user to selectively control how their interests affect the ranking of the documents.
Systems and methods to process and translate Pinyin to Chinese characters and words are disclosed.
Methods and apparatus determine equivalent descriptions for an information need. In one implementation, if adjacent entries in a query log contain common terms, the uncommon terms are identified as a candidate pair. The candidate pairs are assigned a score based on their frequency of occurrence, and pairs having a score exceeding a defined threshold are determined to be synonyms.
Address Geocoding (US6934634)
A geocoding component generates geographic coordinate information, such as latitude and longitude values, for postal addresses. A table includes a number of rows, each corresponding to one or more addresses. The geocoding component can quickly locate a particular row in the table based on a number of input address identifiers as the intersection of the sets rows that correspond to each of the address terms. The geocoding component may operate on addresses that are received by the geocoding component or extracted from documents.
Incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner is described. Syndicated material e.g., corresponding to a newsfeed, search results or web logs, are combined with the output of an automated ad server. An automated ad server is used to provide keyword or content based targeted ads. The ads are incorporated directly into a syndicated feed; e.g., with individual ads becoming items within a particular channel of the feed. The resulting syndicated feed including targeted ads is supplied to the end user; e.g., as a set of search results or as a requested Web log. Embedding of targeted ads into syndicated feeds and/or user response to the embedded ads is be tracked in an automated manner for billing. The automated targeting and insertion process allows ads to be kept current and timely while the original feed may be considerably older.
Keyword suggestions that are category aware (and field-proven) may be used to help advertisers better target the serving of their ads, and may reduce unused ad spot inventory. The advertiser can enter ad information, such as a creative, a landing Webpage, other keywords, etc. for example. A keyword facility may use this entered ad information as seed information to infer one or more categories. It may then request that the advertiser confirm or deny some basic feedback information (e.g., categories, Web page information, etc.).
Systems and methods for generation of hyperlinks and anchor text from data such as reference text in HTML and in non-HTML documents are disclosed. The method generally includes locating a text reference in a source document, searching using a search engine for a target document relating to the text reference, computing anchor text from the text reference, generating a hyperlink to the target document, and associating the hyperlink with the computed anchor text.
Systems and methods for direct navigation to and/or highlighting a specific portion of a target document such as query-relevant portion of the document are disclosed.
Systems and methods are disclosed for improving search quality. Search queries are expanded using a variety of linguistic techniques.
Various methods, systems, and apparatuses for customizing travel actions in travel directions are disclosed. One method and apparatus includes providing a first set of travel directions to a user, the travel directions including at least one travel action, receiving at least one selected travel action and a replacement travel action from the user associated with the first set of travel directions, and outputting a second set of travel directions associated with the at least one selected travel action and the replacement travel action. Another method and apparatus includes obtaining travel directions based an a start point and an end point, comparing travel actions from the travel directions with a customization file, the customization file including at least one selected travel action and a replacement travel action, determining that at least one travel action in the travel directions is the same as the at least one selected travel action, and integrating the replacement travel action into the travel directions.
Systems and methods for personalized network searching are described. A search engine implements a method comprising receiving a search query, determining a personalized result by searching a personalized search object using the search query, determining a general result by searching a general search object using the search query, and providing a search result for the search query based at least in part on the personalized result and the general result. The search engine may utilize ratings or annotations associated with the previously identified uniform resource locator to locate and sort results.
A drive cooling baffle suitable for rack mount computing systems is disclosed.
A method and system for integrating a digital map system with a source document is disclosed including detecting a location description in the source document, and replacing the detected location description with a hyperlink linking to a depiction of the location description. Another embodiment may include a method and system for integrating a digital map system with a source document including detecting a location description in a source document, verifying that the location description describes an actual location, and integrating a hyperlink linking a depiction of the location description into the source document.
Concept similarity may be used to help resolve ambiguities with respect to ads served using, at least, keyword targeting. More specifically, concept similarity may be used to help determine ad relevancy and/or ad scores.
A method and system for integrating a digital map system with a source document is disclosed including detecting a location description in the source document, and replacing the detected location description with a hyperlink linking to a depiction of the location description.
A method and apparatus, including a graphical user interface, for allowing quick processing of queries, including display of results, without requiring opening of a traditional browser program application window. Queries may be input and processed directly from a persistent or otherwise on-demand query input area, without the need to open a browser or other program separately for entering/processing a query, navigating to a search engine or particular document, etc. A number of query types may be supported by the user interface of the present invention, such that depending on a particular query type selected for/indicated by a query, a particular information retrieval mechanism processes the query to obtain one or more results. A on-demand result window is generated in response to a query request to output one or more results obtained in response to a given query, and optionally is hidden when a user accesses other windows, functionality, etc.; that is, when the result window loses focus.
Concept similarity may be used to help resolve ambiguities with respect to ads served using, at least, keyword targeting. More specifically, concept similarity may be used to help determine ad relevancy and/or ad scores.
A system and method that delivers advertisements for inclusion in electronic documents, such as Web content (e.g., Web pages, email, etc.), in a manner that enables transition from a first display format (e.g., a textual format) into a second display format (e.g., an interactive graphical menu-driven format, a larger text ad formation, a movie format, an audio format, etc.) on demand in a rapid fashion. The morphed format may include controls that allow navigation to other pages including some informational pages and some merchant pages for purchasing goods and/or services. When the user activates optional controls, such as menu selection(s), the contents page may change, yet continue to include the same menu-driven graphics-based advertisement so that the advertisement "follows the user."
A computer-implemented method and system for advertising that performs the steps of delivering an electronic advertisement comprising one or more menu options and a reference to a network location for retrieving specified content associated with each menu option for inclusion in a first electronic document, receiving a selection of one or more menu options from the electronic advertisement and delivering a subsequent accessible document including content from the referenced network location associated with the menu option selected, the subsequent accessible document including the electronic advertisement.
A method and apparatus, including a graphical user interface, for allowing quick processing of queries, including display of results, without requiring opening of a traditional browser program application window. Queries may be input and processed directly from a persistent or otherwise on-demand query input area, without the need to open a browser or other program separately for entering/processing a query, navigating to a search engine or particular document, etc. A number of query types may be supported by the user interface of the present invention, such that depending on a particular query type selected for/indicated by a query, a particular information retrieval mechanism processes the query to obtain one or more results. A on-demand result window is generated in response to a query request to output one or more results obtained in response to a given query, and optionally is hidden when a user accesses other windows, functionality, etc.; that is, when the result window loses focus.
A system and method that delivers advertisements for inclusion in electronic documents, such as web content (e.g., web pages, email, etc.), in a manner that enables transition from a first display format (e.g., a textual format) into a second display format (e.g., an interactive graphical menu-driven format, a larger text ad formation, a movie format, an audio format, etc.) on demand in a rapid fashion. The morphed format may include controls that allow navigation to other pages including some informational pages and some merchant pages for purchasing goods and/or services. When the user activates optional controls, such as menu selection(s), the contents page may change, yet continue to include the same menu-driven graphics-based advertisement so that the advertisement "follows the user."
A computer-implemented method and system for advertising that performs the steps of delivering an electronic advertisement comprising one or more menu options and a reference to a network location for retrieving specified content associated with each menu option for inclusion in a first electronic document, receiving a selection of one or more menu options from the electronic advertisement and delivering a subsequent accessible document including content from the referenced network location associated with the menu option selected, the subsequent accessible document including the electronic advertisement.
Content-targeted ads are served with e-mail messages, such as HTML e-mail messages by (i) having the document publisher include a unique content identifier in the content, (ii) having a client device pass the unique content identifier to a content-relevant ad server in a content-relevant ad request, and (iii) having the content-relevant ad server use the unique contend identifier to identify previously registered content for purposes of determining contentrelevant ads. In the content-relevant ad server, multiple ads may compete for desired ad attributes (e.g., relative position on a page) or features. An arbitration process may be used to chose and/or order the ads. By having the client device pass the unique content identifier to the content-relevant ad server when it needs the ads, ads can be chosen and generated all at the time the user reads (or more generally "opens") the e-mail document. This permits up to date ad information to be used when serving ads. User actions with respect to served ads may be tracked by (i) using an ad image to display ads in the document, and (ii) using an image map (included in the document originally served) to monitor user behavior with respect to an ad served in a document. All the information about the ad impression may be encoded in a unique identifier, which is returned, along with the ad image. The ad image and unique identifier may be provided to a client device. When a user selects an ad, this unique identifier may be returned to the ad server. A position of an image map clicked may also be returned to the ad server. The returned unique identifier and image position may be used to allow the ad server to detennine which ad was selected. Thus, the unique identifier permits a selection to be matched with a previous ad serve.
If some aspect of serving or scoring an ad is subject to a performance (e.g., click-through rate, etc.) threshold, such a threshold may be adjusted using a confidence factor of the ad targeting used. For example, ads served pursuant to a more relaxed notion of match might have to meet a higher performance threshold (e.g., than the threshold applied to ads served pursuant to a stricter notion of match). Alternatively, or in addition, ads served pursuant to a stricter notion of match might he subject to a lower performance threshold (e.g., than the threshold applied to ads served pursuant to a more relaxed notion of match. Thus, in general, a performance threshold could increase as match confidence decreases, and/or a performance threshold could decrease as match confidence increases.
A system and method for automatically targeting Web-based advertisements is described. Advertisements are identified relative to a query, wherein identified advertisements describe characteristics relative to at least one of a product and a service. The advertisements are scored according to match between the query and the characteristics of the identified advertisements. At least some of the advertisements are provided as Web-based content.
The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by owing advertisers to better target their ads to a responsive audience. End user local time formation, such as at least one of (a) a local time-of-day, (b) a local time-of-day range, (c) a calendar date, (d) a local day-of week, (e) a local date range, (f) a local day-of-week range, and (g) a calendar season, is determined (or simply accepted) and used.
Online information (such as advertiser Web pages in conjunction with products lists, Web content, existing online ads, etc.), or an electronic version of offline advertisement information, is used to generate online advertising information, such as a landing page, targeting information, and/or ad creative information.
The number of ads potentially relevant to search query information may be increased by relaxing the notion of search query keyword matching. This may be done, for example, by expanding a set of ad request key words to include both query keywords (or derivatives of a root thereof) and related keywords. The related keywords may be words with a relatively high co-occurrence with a query keyword in a group of previous search queries (e.g.,Iditarod, Alaska, ..., malamute search queries in a session). The scores of ads with key word targeting criteria that matched words related to words in a search query, but not the words from the search query, may be discounted. That is, the scores of ads served pursuant to a relaxed notion of matching may be discounted relative to the scores of ads served pursuant to a stricter notion of matching. This may be done by using a score modification parameter, such as an ad performance multiplier (for cases in which an ad score is a function of ad performance information). The score modification parameter may be updated to reflect observed performance data, such as performance data associated with {word-to-related word} mappings.
A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.
A system and method for creating a user profile and for using the user profile to order search results returned by a search engine. The user profile is based on search queries submitted by a user, the user's specific interaction with the documents identified by the search engine and personal information provided by the user. Generic scores associated with the search results are modulated by the user profile to measure their relevance to a user's preference and interest. The search results are reordered accordingly so that the most relevant results appear on the top of the list. User profiles can be created and/or stored on the client side or server side of a client-server network environment. text analysis.
A system determines a freshness of a first document. The system determines whether a freshness attribute is associated with the first document. The system identifies, based on the determination, a set of second documents that each contain a link to the first document. The system assigns a freshness score to the first document based on a freshness attribute associated with each document of the set of second documents or the freshness attribute associated with the first document.
Methods and apparatus consistent with the invention allow a user to submit an ambiguous search query and to receive relevant search results. Queries can be expressed using character sets and/or languages that are different from the character set and/or language of at least some of the data that is to be searched. A translation between these character sets and/or languages can be performed by examining the use of terms in aligned text. Probabilities can be associated with each possible translation. Refinements can be made to these probabilities by examining user interactions with the search results.
If some aspect of serving or scoring an ad is subject to a performance (e.g., click-through rate, etc.) threshold, such a threshold may be adjusted using a confidence factor of the ad targeting used.
The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing advertisers to better target their ads to a responsive audience. End user local time information, such as at least one of (a) a local time-of-day, (b) a local time-of-day range, (c) a local date, (d) a local day-of-week, (e) a local date range, (f) a local day-of-week range, and (g) a local season, is determined (or simply accepted) and used.
Systems and methods improve search rankings for a search query by using location data associated with queries and documents related to the search query. In one aspect, a search query is received, a location score is determined, a topical score is determined, and an ordering of documents related to the search query is determined based, at least in part, on the location score and the topical score.
Content-targeted ads are served with e-mail messages, such as HTML e-mail messages by (i) having the document publisher include a unique content identifier in the content, (ii) having a client device pass the unique content identifier to a content-relevant ad server in a content-relevant ad request, and (iii) having the content-relevant ad server use the unique contend identifier to identify previously registered content for purposes of determining content-relevant ads. In the content-relevant ad server, multiple ads may compete for desired ad attributes (e.g., relative position on a page) or features. An arbitration process may be used to chose and/or order the ads. By having the client device pass the unique content identifier to the content-relevant ad server when it needs the ads, ads can be chosen and generated all at the time the user reads (or more generally "opens") the e-mail document. This permits up-to-date ad information to be used when serving ads.
A system forms search results clustered by address or telephone number. When clustering by address, the system may receive a search query and identify a geographical area of interest based, at least in part, on the search query. The system may identify documents that arc associated with addresses located within the geographical area of interest, group the identified documents into clusters based, at least in part, on the addresses located within the geographical area of interest, and present the clusters as the search results. When clustering by telephone number, the system may receive a search query that includes at least one portion of a telephone number and identify documents that are associated with telephone numbers that match the at least one portion of the telephone number. The system may group the identified documents into clusters based on the telephone numbers included in the identified documents and present the clusters as the search results.
The number of ads potentially relevant to search query information may be increased by relaxing the notion of search query keyword matching.
A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data
Systems and methods that improve search rankings for a search query by using data associated with queries related to the search query are described. In one aspect, a search query is received, a population associated with the search query is determined, an article (such as a Web page) associated with the search query is determined, and a ranking score for the article based at least in part on data associated with the population is determined. Algorithms and types of data associated with a population useful in carrying out such systems and methods are described.
Systems and methods that improve search rankings for a search query by using data associated with queries related to the search query are described. In one aspect, a search query is received, a related query related to the search query is determined, an article (such as a web page) associated with the search query is determined, and a ranking score for the article based at least in part on data associated with the related query is determined. Several algorithms and types of data associated with related queries useful in carrying out such systems and methods are described.
A system and method for creating a user profile and for using the user profile to order search results returned by a search engine. The user profile is based on search queries submitted by a user, the user's specific interaction with the documents identified by the search engine and personal information provided by the user. Generic scores associated with the search results are modulated by the user profile to measure their relevance to a user's preference and interest. The search results are reordered accordingly so that the most relevant results appear on the top of the list. User profiles can be created and/or stored on the client side or server side of a client-server network environment.
A system and method for automatically targeting Web-based advertisements is described. Advertisements are identified relative to a query, wherein identified advertisements describe characteristics relative to at least one of a product and a service. The advertisements are scored according to match between the query and the characteristics of the identified advertisements. At least some of the advertisements are provided as Web-based content.
A system ranks results. The system may receive a list of links. The system may identify a source with which each of the links is associated and rank the list of links based at least in part on a quality of the identified sources.
A content owner partner (e.g., a Web site/Web page publisher) can easily block entire broad or narrow categories of ads, and can specify objectionable ad content or targeting. Concepts may be associated with a property and ads related to those concepts may be blocked for the given property. Further, terms may be associated with a property and ads including any of the terms may be blocked for the given property.
Systems and methods improve search rankings for a search query by using location data associated with queries and documents related to the search query. In one aspect, a search query is received, a location score is determined, a topical score is determined, and an ordering of documents related to the search query is determined based, at least in part, on the location score and the topical score.
A system and method for providing search query refinements is presented. A stored query and a stored document are associated as a logical pairing and a weight is assigned to the logical pairing. The search query is issued and a set of search documents is produced. At least one search document is matched to at least one stored document and the stored query and the assigned weight associated with the matching at least one stored document is retrieved. At least one cluster is formed based on the stored query and the assigned weight associated with the matching at least one stored document. The stored query associated with the matching at least one stored document is scored for the at least one cluster relative to at least one other cluster and at least one such scored search query is suggested as a set of query refinements.
A system forms search results clustered by address or telephone number. When clustering by address, the system may receive a search query and identify a geographical area of interest based, at least in part, on the search query. The system may identify documents that are associated with addresses located within the geographical area of interest, group the identified documents into clusters based, at least in part, on the addresses located within the geographical area of interest, and present the clusters as the search results. When clustering by telephone number, the system may receive a search query that includes at least one portion of a telephone number and identify documents that are associated with telephone numbers that match the at least one portion of the telephone number. The system may group the identified documents into clusters based on the telephone numbers included in the identified documents and present the clusters as the search results.
Systems and methods for cable management in rack-mounted computing systems for housing electronics devices such as servers are disclosed.
The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. Location information is determined (or simply accepted) and used.
Systems and methods that improve search rankings for a search query by using data associated with queries related to the search query are described. In one aspect, a search query is received, a population associated with the search query is determined, an article (such as a Web page) associated with the search query is determined, and a ranking score for the article based at least in part on data associated with the population is determined. Algorithms and types of data associated with a population useful in carrying out such systems and methods are described.
Systems and methods that improve search rankings for a search query by using data associated with queries related to the search query are described. In one aspect, a search query is received, a related query related to the search query is determined, an article (such as a web page) associated with the search query is determined, and a ranking score for the article based at least in part on data associated with the related query is determined. Several algorithms and types of data associated with related queries useful in carrying out such systems and methods are described.
A system tracks user actions associated with a displayed advertisement. The system may generate a cookie in response to a user action, such as an ad click, and transmit the cookie to the user. The cookie may be associated with a particular advertiser. The system may then determine whether other actions performed by the user resulted from the advertisement.
A system ranks results. The system may receive a list of links. The system may identify a source with which each of the links is associated and rank the list of links based at least in part on a quality of the identified sources.
A content owner partner (e.g., a Web site/Web page publisher) can easily block entire broad or narrow categories of ads, and can specify objectionable ad content or targeting. Concepts may be associated with a property and ads related to those concepts may be blocked for the given property. Further, terms may be associated with a property and ads including any of the terms may be blocked for the given property.
A system and method for providing search query refinements are presented. A stored query and a stored document are associated as a logical pairing. A weight is assigned to the logical pairing. The search query is issued and a set of search documents is produced. At least one search document is matched to at least one stored document. The stored query and the assigned weight associated with the matching at least one stored document are retrieved. At least one cluster is formed based on the stored query and the assigned weight associated with the matching at least one stored document. The stored query associated with the matching at least one stored document are scored for the at least one cluster relative to at least one other cluster. At least one such scored search query is suggested as a set of query refinements.
A system tracks user actions associated with a displayed advertisement. The system may generate a cookie in response to a user action, such as an ad click, and transmit the cookie to the user. The cookie may be associated with a particular advertiser. The system may then determine whether other actions performed by the user resulted from the advertisement.
A system allows a user to submit an ambiguous search query and to receive potentially disambiguated search results. In one implementation, a search engine's conventional alpha-numeric index is translated into a second index that is ambiguated in the same manner as which the user's input is ambiguated. The user's ambiguous search query is compared to this ambiguated index, and the corresponding documents are provided to the user as search results.
The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. Location information is determined (or simply accepted) and used.
A system and a method that manages a user query by a single interaction between a server and a client. A plurality of clients send queries for search results to a server. The server receives these queries and performs multiple searches to generate multiple sets of search results. These sets of search results are ranked, consolidated and passed to the requesting client. The client stores these multiple sets of search results. The client then displays these search results in accordance to the boundary defined by the user. This boundary defines the portions of the search results that the user desires to view. The user may redefine the boundary. The client identifies the search results corresponding to the boundary and displays them.
A system and a method that manages a user query by a single interaction between a server and a client. A plurality of clients send queries for search results to a server. The server receives these queries and performs multiple searches to generate multiple sets of search results. These sets of search results are ranked, consolidated and passed to the requesting client. The client stores these multiple sets of search results. The client then displays these search results in accordance to the boundary defined by the user. This boundary defines the portions of the search results that the user desires to view. The user may redefine the boundary. The client identifies the search results corresponding to the boundary and displays them.
Systems and methods for determining a meaning of a document to match the document to content are described. In one aspect, a source article is accessed, a plurality of regions in the source article are identified, at least one local concept associated with each region is determined, the local concepts of each region are analyzed to identify any unrelated regions, the local concepts associated with any unrelated regions are eliminated to determine relevant concepts, the relevant concepts are analyzed to determine a source meaning for the source article, and the source meaning is matched with an item meaning associated with an item from a set of items.
Systems and methods that create and edit a network of interconnected concepts are disclosed. In one embodiment, a semantic engine implements a method comprising receiving a primary term representing a first concept to be added to a network of interrelated concepts, receiving at least one related term related to the primary term, receiving at least one relationship between the first concept and a second concept, receiving a strength value associated with the relationship, and adding the first concept to the network.
Systems and methods that determine a meaning of a knowledge item using related information are described. In one aspect, a knowledge item is received, related information associated with the knowledge item is received, at least one related meaning based on the related information is determined, and a knowledge item meaning for the knowledge item based at least in part on the related meaning is determined. Several algorithms and types of related information useful in carrying out such systems and methods are described.
A system and method for providing a user interface with search query broadening is presented. A query defining a search executable on potentially retrievable information is accepted. The query is parsed. A broadened query is provided. At least one of the broadened query and results of a search executed on the broadened query is presented.
A content-targeting ad system is provided with a user behavior (e.g., selection (e.g., click), conversion, etc.) feedback mechanism. The performance of individual ads, or groups of ads, may be tracked on a per document (e.g. per URL) and/or on a per host (e.g. per Website) basis. The performance of ad targeting functions may also be tracked on a per document, and/or per host basis. Such user behavior feedback data may be processed (e.g., aggregated) into useful data structures. Such user behavior feedback data (raw or processed) may then be used in a content-targeting ad system to improve ad quality, improve user experience, and/or maximize revenue.
A system and method for providing a user interface with search query broadening is described. A query defining a