Indexing Native Application Pages via Virtual Machine Emulation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Search engines cannot effectively index and retrieve data from native applications on devices, as they operate independently of browser environments and do not crawl or index information within native application environments, leading to inaccurate search results and increased optimization burdens for publishers.
Innovation Solution
A system that instantiates a virtual machine to emulate an operating system, allowing access and indexing of native application pages, generating application page data that includes actual content rather than metadata, and providing this data for search engines to improve relevance and accuracy of search results.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If search engines use metadata to index native applications, then indexing is simpler and faster, but search accuracy and comprehensiveness deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the native application environment within a virtual machine. This copy allows the search engine to access and index actual application content without requiring direct integration with each native application, thus maintaining indexing efficiency while improving search accuracy through access to real content data.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual machine acts as an intermediary between the search engine and native applications. It emulates the operating system environment to provide controlled access to application content, enabling the search engine to retrieve actual content data while isolating the indexing process from the complexity of native application environments.
2Measurement precision
If search engines access actual application content, then search relevance improves, but system complexity and access difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual machine serves as an intermediary that manages the complexity of accessing native application content. It provides a standardized interface for the search engine to access application data without requiring direct integration with each application's internal structure, thus improving search relevance while containing system complexity within the virtualization layer.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual machine environment provides universal access to multiple native applications through a single standardized interface. Rather than requiring separate access mechanisms for each application, the virtualized environment enables the search engine to access content from any native application that runs on the emulated operating system, reducing overall system complexity.
3Loss of information
If search engines crawl native application environments, then content coverage increases, but processing time and resource consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
By creating a virtual copy of the native application environment, the system enables comprehensive content coverage without the need to physically access and process each native application on actual user devices. The virtualized environment consolidates access to multiple applications in a single controllable instance, reducing the time and resources required for crawling while maintaining complete content coverage.
Data Source
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AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for indexing application pages of native applications that operate independent of a browser application on a user device. In one aspect, a method includes instantiating a virtual machine emulating an operating system of a user device; instantiating, within the virtual machine, a native application that generates application pages for display on a user device within the native application; accessing, within the virtual machine, application pages of the native application, and for each of the application pages: generating application page data describing content of the application page, the content described by the application page data including text that a user device displays on the application page when the user device displays the application page; and indexing the application page data for the native application in an index that is searchable by a search engine.