Query Alteration for Search Bottleneck Term Filtering

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Solution Overview

Problem

Search engines often fail to retrieve relevant information due to performance bottlenecks caused by terms in the search query that are unlikely to yield results, despite query alteration techniques, leading to inefficient use of resources and unsatisfactory search outcomes.

Innovation Solution

A query search engine optimizes query alteration candidates by identifying bottleneck terms and adjusting confidence scores based on their ability to resolve performance bottlenecks, ensuring only effective candidates are used to generate search results.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If query alteration techniques are applied to handle spelling errors, synonyms, hypernyms, and acronyms, then search result relevance may improve, but search machine cost and latency increase due to multiple query alteration candidates requiring full search execution

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesearch result relevanceVSAvoidsearch machine cost and latency

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by pre-computing and storing frequency counts of searchable terms and query alteration candidates in a data structure before actual search execution. This allows the system to quickly identify bottleneck terms and filter out unlikely candidates without performing full search operations, thereby reducing search machine cost and latency while maintaining search result relevance.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system extracts and isolates bottleneck terms from the search query by analyzing frequency counts of individual terms and their combinations. By identifying which terms are most likely to cause search failures, the system can separate and address only those critical terms rather than processing all query terms equally, thus reducing overall search complexity and resource consumption.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

2Measurement precision

If multiple query alteration candidates are generated and tested, then search result accuracy improves, but processing time and computational resources increase due to full search execution for each candidate

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesearch result accuracyVSAvoidprocessing time

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary analysis by pre-computing frequency counts of searchable terms and query alteration candidates and storing them in a data structure. This preliminary action enables rapid identification of bottleneck terms and filtering of unlikely candidates during actual search execution, avoiding the need to perform full search operations for all candidates and thus reducing processing time while maintaining search result accuracy.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system skips or rushes through the search process for candidates identified as unlikely to succeed based on frequency count analysis. By using pre-computed statistics to predict search outcomes, the system can quickly discard candidates that are likely to fail without executing full searches, thereby reducing processing time while preserving accuracy for promising candidates.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #21Skipping (Rushing through)

3Reliability

If full search execution is performed for each query alteration candidate, then search result reliability is maintained, but system resource consumption and processing latency increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesearch result reliabilityVSAvoidsystem resource consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSUse of energy by stationary object

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary computation of frequency counts for searchable terms and query alteration candidates, storing this information in a data structure before actual search execution. This preliminary action enables the system to quickly identify bottleneck terms and filter out candidates unlikely to yield results, thereby reducing the number of full search executions needed and lowering system resource consumption while maintaining search result reliability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system uses its own pre-computed frequency count data to make intelligent decisions about which search candidates to pursue. By serving itself with the information already stored in its data structure, the system can efficiently filter out unlikely candidates without requiring external intervention or additional data processing, thus reducing resource consumption while preserving search reliability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Data Source

PatentUS12530350B2Bottleneck aware query alteration for search

Publication Date: 2026.01.20 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC

AI summary

Systems and methods for resolving a performance bottleneck of a query search to improve search results are provided. In particular, a computing device may receive a user search query from a user, generate query alteration candidates based on the user search query using an index-based language model, determine whether the user search query includes a bottleneck term that is likely to cause the performance bottleneck of the query search, wherein the bottleneck term includes one or more words or phrases, optimize, in response to determination that the user search query includes the bottleneck term, the query alteration candidates to resolve the performance bottleneck, update the index-based language model by updating confidence scores associated with the query alteration candidates, generate search results based on the optimized query alteration candidates, and provide the search results to the user.