135 results about "Web search engine" patented technology

A system and method for enabling information providers using a computer network such as the Internet to influence a position for a search listing within a search result list generated by an Internet search engine. A database stores accounts for the network information providers. Each account contains contact and billing information for a network information provider. In addition, each account contains at least one search listing having at least three components: a description, a search term comprising one or more keywords, and a bid amount. The network information provider may add, delete, or modify a search listing after authenticated login. A search term relevant to the content of the web site or other information source to be listed is first selected. A search listing includes the search term and a description. A bidding process occurs when the network information provider enters a new bid amount for a search listing. The system and method then compares the bid amount with all other bid amounts for the same search term, and generates a rank value for all search listings having that search term. The rank value determines where the listing will appear on the search results list page that is generated in response to a query of the search term by a searcher.

A system and method of distributed metadata searching is disclosed. The present invention permits an extension of the searching and retrieval functions of existing Internet web search engines by utilizing computational resources embodied in user computer systems and search browsers. By distributing the searching and scanning functions to the user level, the present invention reduces the computational and communications burden on Internet web search engines and crawlers, resulting in lower computational resource utilization by Internet search engine providers. Given the exponential growth rate currently being experienced in the Internet community, the present invention provides one of the few methods by which complete searches of this vast distributed database may be performed. The present invention permits embodiments incorporating a Search Manger (1001) further comprising a Service Results Manager (1013), User Profile Database (1012), Service Manager(1013), and Service Database (1014); a Light Weight Application SCANNER (1002); and a Search Engine (1008). These components may be augmented in some preferred embodiments via the use of a Search Browser (1003), Internet Communications (1004); Web Site(s) (1005), Web Crawler(s) (1006), and a Repository Database (1007).

A method starts with submitting an internet protocol address to a web search engine so that the location of a user can be determined. Then, a user inputs one or more keywords that can be used by the web search engine to compare with all of its generated indexes. After searching various indexes, the web search engine may find multiple uniform resource locators that identify various servers that contain information that may be relevant to the user's search. Then, the web search engine uses an internet protocol mapping table, that is generated by the web search engine along with other data regarding various uniform resource locators prior to performing the requested search, to correlate the uniform resource locators with the geographical address of the server. Afterwards, the web search engine is able to sort the results of the search using the distance between the uniform resource locators and the user. Once the user has this information it is much simpler to determine which uniform resource locator may correlate with an easy to travel to business. This feature will enhance existing web search engines and thus, further increase the expanding popularity of using the internet to gather useful information.

Methods to adapt a user interface view, provided by an integrated media / search web site via a global informational network, based on a user's lifestyle are disclosed. The methods include populating a user interface view of the integrated web site with a first set of links to the global informational network, wherein the integrated web site integrates a streaming digital media provider station with a global search engine. A user selects a link from the first set of links or performs a key word search using the global search engine. The user interface view is then re-populated with an updated set of links to the global informational network based on demographic and psychographic associations made by the global search engine in response to at least the most recently selected link, the most recent key word search, or the most recent streaming media content. If a new link or a new key word search is performed, the user interface view is again re-populated with an updated set of links. Also, if the streaming media program content from the provider changes, the user interface view is again re-populated with an updated set of links.

Providing immediate search feedback is disclosed. Search input is received within a search field of a web browser application. Based on characteristics of the search input, a determination is made whether to automatically submit a query to a search engine. In one aspect, the query is automatically submitted to the search engine. The query is based on the received first search input. Results are displayed within the web browser application, the results web page returned from the query submitted to the search engine.

An Internet search system integrates additional concept-related information into a regular web search engine, providing better page ranking and richer presentation of search results. The additional information is directly related to the contents of the retrieved web pages but does not appear on the retrieved web pages and / or in the link structure. The new search system searches a conventional web page collection together with databases containing publications and semantic web data, which provides the aforesaid additional information.

A database search apparatus and method for generating a search result list which responds to Extensible Markup Language (XML) requests from a client to a server of an on-line marketplace. A bid management tool is operable on a client computer to manage search listings and account information of one or more advertisers. The client application communicates with the server via an XML-based application program interface. The bid management tool provides functions for reporting account activity, modifying accounts and manual, timed or event-driven changes to search listings including listings of several advertisers.

A method for improving web search results based on analysis of users' offline activities that are related to their online search. Web search results, including local search results, for a user may be improved by monitoring the actions of users when not interacting with the web search engine. By monitoring “offline” activities (e.g., telephone calls) and matching a person participating in an activity (e.g., the person making a telephone call) to a search engine user, a set of preferences for a given user may be determined, which may be used to select and sort web search results for that user. Preference data for one user may be used to select and sort web search results for other users, including those for which the search engine does not have preference data.

We describe a search engine generator that automates the process of creating a search engine for a particular structured document written in a natural language such as English. The search engine allows more convenient and flexible analysis of information stored in natural language documents than is currently available with World Wide Web search engines or portal builders. Specifically, it displays matching records in a tabular format for easy comparison; this may include information calculated with data from the document. Further, the search engine's graphical user interface (GUI) is available in different natural languages to facilitate searches by international users, and the GUI has a customizable graphic design.

A solution is provided that allows end users to search documents in multiple remote content repositories in an enterprise environment, while maintaining security of those documents. Additionally, end users are able to search for a document without knowing which server or directory it is stored under. This is accomplished by installing a search agent on the end user's machine. The search engine collects the metadata of authorized documents located in different repositories via a web protocol (such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP) and stores them in the user's local memory as “searchable links”. This solves the enterprise content search problem through the creation of searchable links of remote content objects in an end user's local machine while allowing emerging desktop-search technology to index them.

A system and method for a comparative web search engines, search result summarization, web snippet processing, comparison analysis, information visualization, meta-clustering, and quantitative evaluation of web snippet quality are disclosed. The present invention extends the capabilities of web searching and informational retrieval by providing a succinct comparative summary of search results at either the object or thematic levels.

An implicit links enhancement system and method for search engines that generates implicit links obtained from mining user access logs to facilitate enhanced local searching of web sites and intranets. The implicit links search enhancement system and method includes extracting implicit links by mining users' access patterns and then using a modified link analysis algorithm to re-rank search results obtained from traditional search engines. More specifically, the implicit links search enhancement method includes extracting implicit links from a user access log, generating an implicit links graph from the extracted implicit links, and computing page rankings using the implicit links graph. The implicit links are extracted from the log using a two-item sequential pattern mining technique. Search results obtained from a search engine are re-ranked based on an implicit links analysis performed using an updated implicit links graph, a modified re-ranking formula, and at least one re-ranking technique.

A commercial search engine for searchmercials. The system manages and searches advertising media video and audio files and associating the media with one or more calls to action. The system contains Metadata utilized for various queries including search, channels of distribution and account information. The system uses a manually data entry interface or a custom retrieval system to selectively update media files and Metadata from Meta tags or feeds on a scheduled basis automatically without having to manually update this data in the system. The system spiders these custom Meta tags or feeds for new Metadata on a scheduled basis to automate the submission and programming of the searchmercials content over the search engine. The system provides videos tailored for search in the results list in order to better inform users as to the contents of a link URL. The system can also provide users with other call to action options such as click to call, literature, order forms, etc. The system can schedule searchmercials to target users by time of day, location, device, and other parameters to offer a call to action to different audiences.

An optimization engine allows website publishers and other network document publishers to view and navigate statistics and scoring methodologies of a search engine. Publishers may thus gain a better understanding of how their website or network document is scored and how to optimize those documents to increase a search engine score. The user is thus able to navigate the network from the perspective of a search engine, viewing webpages, websites, and links in the same way a search engine would analyze them. Upon making changes to a website or network document, publishers may further request on-demand re-crawling of their website or network document to view changes in the score. Alerts may also be activated by a user to notify the user when certain conditions are met.

Allowing unhosted user content feeds to a public search engine, such as a web search engine, involves a user easily identifying a file as a file the user wants to share with others by, for example, storing the file in a particular directory folder on the user's device. Once identified, the file is scanned and a corresponding entry is inserted into a search index. The storage location on the user's device may be captured, and that information added to the search index for linking to the stored file. The file may be uploaded to a caching server, for serving either primarily from the caching server or secondarily from the caching server when the file is not available from the user's storage. An access policy, which indicates what portion of the public has permission to access the file, may be associated with the shared file.

A method for improving web search results based on analysis of users' offline activities that are related to their online search. Web search results, including local search results, for a user may be improved by monitoring the actions of users when not interacting with the web search engine. By monitoring “offline” activities (e.g., telephone calls) and matching a person participating in an activity (e.g., the person making a telephone call) to a search engine user, a set of preferences for a given user may be determined, which may be used to select and sort web search results for that user. Preference data for one user may be used to select and sort web search results for other users, including those for which the search engine does not have preference data.

Toolbar incorporating software that collects, analyzes and protects information on user preferences determined based on user's online activities. Advertising is targeted to each user, while user's privacy is protected by storing all personal information on user's local computer. The toolbar permits advertisers to advertise without paying fees until advertising brings actual revenue. The toolbar also provides means for giving incentives to users by allocating to users portion of generated revenue back to user. To this end, the toolbar may involve one or more of the following: web search engine interface with cost-per-action revenue model, web browsing monetization engine, advanced advertising engine and engine for tracking accumulated user's rewards. In one implementation, once advertiser generates revenue from displayed advertising material, percentage of generated revenue is provided back to users. The described concept is not limited only to toolbar and may be alternatively implemented as portal or in any other suitable platform.

A computerized method is used to estimate the relative coverage of Web search engines. Each search engine maintains an index of words of pages located at specific URL addresses in a network. The method generates a random query. The random query is a logical combination of words found in a subset of the pages. The random query is submitted to a first search engine. In response a set of URLs of pages matching the query are received. Each URL identifies a page indexed by the first search engine that satisfies the random query. A particular URL identifying a sample page is randomly selected. A strong query corresponding to the sample page is generated, and the strong query is submitted to a second search engine. Result information received in response to the strong query is compared to determine if the second search engine has indexed the sample page, or a page substantially similar to the sample page. This procedure is repeated to gather statistical data which is used to estimate the relative sizes and amount of overlap of search engines.

A system and method for implementing / influencing a search engine which provides search results to users based on characteristics of certain trendsetter web pages identified on the Internet. The trendsetter web page are determined by studying historical adoption behavior of a group within the universe of websites, or by reference to known indicia.

The invention provides a search content providing method and a search engine. The search content providing method includes that the search engine acquires search data of a user; the search engine acquires a first associated word set and a second associated word set associated with preset keywords according to the search data; the search engine establishes association between first associated words in the first associated word set a nd second associated words in the second associated word set according to the search data and the preset keywords; when receiving a search request including the preset keywords, the search engine provides search content according to the association. By the search content providing method, the search content can be provided according to the association, more systematic and clearer search recommendations can be recommended to the user, convenience is brought to the user for accurately and quickly acquiring needed results, search requirements of the user can be met efficiently and accurately, and search experience of the user is good.

A system and method facilitating incremental web crawl(s) using chunk(s) is provided. The system can be employed, for example, to facilitate a web-crawling system that crawls (e.g., continuously) the Internet for information (e.g., data) and indexes the information so that it can be used as part of a web search engine.The system facilitates incremental re-crawls and / or selective updating of information (e.g., documents) using a structure called a chunk to simplify the process of an incremental crawl. A chunk is a set of documents that can be manipulated as a set (e.g., of up to 65,536 (64K) documents). “Document” refers to a corpus of data that is stored at a particular URL (e.g., HTML, PDF, PS, PPT, XLS, and / or DOC Files etc.)A chunk is created by an indexer. The indexer can place into a chunk documents that have similar property(ies). These property(ies) include but are not limited to: average time between change and average importance. These property(ies) can be stored at the chunk level in a chunk map. The chunk map can then be employed (e.g., on a daily basis) to determine which chunk(s) should be re-crawled.

A document classification method and system based on document structure and style. The classification method and system categorizes document alphabetical words into complex and non-complex words, categorizes document linguistic sentences into subjective and non-subjective sentences and categorizes document images into descriptive and non-descriptive. The categorization is further used to calculate a complexity, subjectivity and descriptive-images classification of a document. This classification system can be used by a web search engine to filter, sort or tag a set of document references based on user selection.

A data structure, apparatuses and methods for expanding a search query to be used by a web search engine is provided. The search query is expanded by accessing a concept knowledge base data structure having concept data objects and term data objects with each term data object defining a term and associated with at least one of the concept data objects. Search terms making up the search query are matched to term data objects and a concept set is generated containing concept data objects associated with the term data objects. A second set of term data objects are generated by using the concept data objects to locate term data objects associated with the concept data objects. A user can then select one of the term data objects in the second set to expand the user's search query.

A method detects similar objects in a collection of such objects by modification of a previous method in such a way that per-object memory requirements are reduced while false detections are avoided approximately as well as in the previous method. The modification includes (i) combining k samples of features into s supersamples, the value of k being reduced from the corresponding value used in the previous method; (ii) recording each supersample to b bits of precision, the value of b being reduced from the corresponding value used in the previous method; and (iii) requiring l matching supersamples in order to conclude that the two objects are sufficiently similar, the value of l being greater than the corresponding value required in the previous method. One application of the invention is in association with a web search engine query service to determine clusters of query results that are near-duplicate documents.

The invention discloses a method and device for providing web cache information in a search engine. The method includes the steps that a search keyword corresponding to a current search result page given by the current search engine and a URL of at least one search result displayed in the current research result page are obtained; the search keyword and the URL are sent to a preset cache server for search, so that a web cache matched with the search result is obtained; an access entry of the matched web cache is displayed in the search result page; when an operation focus moves to the access entry, the webpage content of the matched web cache is obtained from the cache server, a suspension layer is created on the upper layer of the current search result page, and the webpage content of the matched web cache is displayed in the suspension layer. Through the method and device, a user can obtain the content information of the web cache more conveniently and rapidly, and the method and device are beneficial to improving the utilization rate of the web cache information.

A commercial search engine for searchmercials. The system manages and searches advertising media video and audio files and associating the media with one or more calls to action. The system contains Metadata utilized for various queries including search, channels of distribution and account information. The system uses a manually data entry interface or a custom retrieval system to selectively update media files and Metadata from Meta tags or feeds on a scheduled basis automatically without having to manually update this data in the system. The system spiders these custom Meta tags or feeds for new Metadata on a scheduled basis to automate the submission and programming of the searchmercials content over the search engine. The system provides videos tailored for search in the results list in order to better inform users as to the contents of a link URL. The system can also provide users with other call to action options such as click to call, literature, order forms, etc. The system can schedule searchmercials to target users by time of day, location, device, and other parameters to offer a call to action to different audiences.

A method and apparatus for a summarization-based search engine is presented. This invention provides a concise answer to a user's query—an accurate and up-to-date summary—that is synthesized from multiple contents taken from the World Wide Web. In contrast to conventional search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, which return the user a list of web links, page titles and sentence fragments, this invention generates more readable, informative, relevant and integrated answers in response to the user's query. Moreover, this invention has broad applications to different search platforms and specific domains. It particularly suits well for mobile devices, inasmuch as its results are more concise than those of conventional search engines.

A method for providing keywords for a web page so as to increase online search engine rankings of the web page is provided. The method includes detecting click-throughs to the web page from a link in a search result list of an online search engine. The method further includes collecting data for each click-through, including: a) at least one keyword entered into an online search engine by a user to produce the search result list from which the click-through originated and b) a position value. The method further includes assigning a score to each keyword based on a number of words in the keyword and position values associated with each keyword. The method further includes providing keywords with a score that meets a predefined threshold as a suggestion for improving search engine rankings of the web page.