Personalization of web search

Abstract

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 re-ordered 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.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates generally to the field of a search engine in a computer network system, in particular to system and method of creating a user profile for a user of a search engine and using the user profile to customize search results in response to search queries submitted by the user. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Search engines provide a powerful source of indexed documents from the Internet (or an intranet) that can be rapidly scanned in response to a search query submitted by a user. Such a query is usually very short (on average about two to three words). As the number of documents accessible via the Internet grows, the number of documents that match the query may also increase. However, not every document matching the query is equally important from the user's perspective. As a result, a user is easily overwhelmed by an enormous number of documents returned by a search engine, if the engine does not order the search results based on their ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a search engine that uses user profiles to customize search results. These profiles are created based on the user's previous search queries, links to relevant documents, and personal information. When a user submits a search query, the engine identifies relevant documents and ranks them based on their relevance to the user's profile. This results in a personalized rank for each document, which is based on the user's preferences and the characteristics of the document. The search engine can also use sub-profiles to further analyze the user's preferences. The invention can be implemented on either the client or server side of a network.

Problems solved by technology

As a result, a user is easily overwhelmed by an enormous number of documents returned by a search engine, if the engine does not order the search results based on their relevance to the user's query.

However, if the user's preference is significantly biased by some personal factors that are not clearly reflected in a search query itself, or if the user's preference is quite different from the random user's preference, the search results from the same search engine may be less useful to the user, if not useless.

However, with billions of web pages connected to the Internet, a search engine often returns hundreds or even thousands of documents that match a search query.

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