Search Result Ranking for Relevant User-Generated Content

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Solution Overview

Problem

Search engines struggle to provide relevant user-generated content that aligns with a user's interests and preferences, often clouded by content associated with other users, making it difficult for users to choose the most relevant results.

Innovation Solution

Implement methods to identify and prioritize user-generated content based on social graph connections, using topicality and recency scores, and integrating this content into search results, ensuring relevance and quality.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Quantity of substance

If search engines return a large number of search results to provide comprehensive coverage, then the quantity of information is improved, but the difficulty for users to choose relevant results increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvequantity of search resultsVSAvoidease of choosing relevant results

Core Design Contradiction:

Quantity of substanceVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments search results into distinct categories including user-generated content, traditional web results, and news results. This segmentation allows users to easily identify and focus on relevant content types without being overwhelmed by the total volume of results, directly addressing the contradiction between comprehensive coverage and ease of selection.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary filtering mechanism that processes search results before presentation to users. This intermediary layer applies relevance algorithms and user preference settings to pre-filter content, reducing the cognitive load on users while maintaining comprehensive search coverage.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If search engines include user-generated content from social services to increase relevance to user interests, then the relevance of search results is improved, but the search results can be clouded by content associated with other users

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverelevance of search resultsVSAvoidclarity of search results

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies local quality by giving different treatment to different types of content within the search results. User-generated content is selectively integrated based on its relevance to the user's social graph and interests, while maintaining clear visual and structural distinctions between content types. This ensures that relevant user-generated content enhances results without causing confusion.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

3Adaptability or versatility

If search engines prioritize user-generated content based on social graph connections to align with user preferences, then the personalization of search results is improved, but the complexity of the search system increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepersonalization of search resultsVSAvoidcomplexity of search system

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-computing and storing user social graph data, preferences, and content relevance metrics before search execution. This pre-processing allows the search system to quickly personalize results during actual search operations without adding significant computational complexity in real-time, resolving the contradiction between personalization and system complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS12468771B2Selective presentation of content types and sources in search

Publication Date: 2025.11.11 GOOGLE LLC

AI summary

Implementations of the present disclosure include actions of receiving a search query, identifying potential search results responsive to the search query, the potential search results corresponding to digital content stored in one or more computer-readable storage media, determining that the potential search results include user-generated content that is generated using one or more computer-implemented social services, receiving data associated with the user-generated content, the data including one or more scores, determining, based on the one or more scores, that the user-generated content is to be provided as a search result, generating search results, the search results including web-based search results and at least a portion of the user-generated content, and transmitting the search results to a client computing device for display to the searching user.