Search Result Sorting Engine for User Type Balance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Online marketplaces often experience an imbalance in search result sets due to the disproportionate number of listings from businesses compared to individual consumers, with businesses dominating top positions through resource allocation, and the practice of posting multiple listings in blocks, leading to consumer listings being overshadowed.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a sorting engine that identifies user types (business vs. consumer) and applies sorting criteria to demote excessive listings from the same user or type, ensuring a balanced representation in search results through seller dominance and business/consumer ratio sorting processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If listings are sorted primarily by posting date, then the most recent listings appear at the top, but this causes businesses and individual users to dominate search results with multiple consecutive listings, creating an imbalance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the search result set by user type (business vs. individual consumer) and applies different sorting rules to different segments. Specifically, it limits the number of consecutive listings from the same user type, ensuring that individual consumer listings are interspersed with business listings rather than appearing in large blocks. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by maintaining chronological sorting while preventing domination by any single user type.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different sorting criteria to different positions and contexts within the search results. Rather than applying a uniform sorting rule, it modifies the sorting behavior locally based on the user type of the previous listing. When a business listing appears, the system adjusts to prioritize individual consumer listings in subsequent positions, and vice versa. This local quality adjustment ensures balanced representation while maintaining overall chronological ordering.
2Productivity
If businesses pay to be listed higher on the search result set, then businesses gain prominent positioning, but this creates an imbalance where consumer listings are overshadowed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by preemptively limiting the share of voice of any single user type in the search results. Even though businesses may pay for prominence, the system pre-establishes constraints that prevent any user type (including businesses) from occupying more than a certain percentage of the top listings. This counter-balancing mechanism ensures that consumer listings maintain visibility despite business payment for advertising.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the sorting parameters dynamically based on the composition of listings already displayed. It monitors the ratio of business to consumer listings and adjusts the sorting criteria accordingly. When businesses have gained excessive prominence (either through payment or volume), the system modifies the sorting parameters to elevate consumer listings, thereby maintaining balance while still allowing businesses to benefit from their advertising investments within reasonable limits.
3Quantity of substance
If a user posts multiple listings in blocks, then that user's listings appear consecutively, but this dominates the search result set and reduces diversity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces dynamic sorting that adapts based on the immediate context of previous listings. Rather than static sorting rules, the system dynamically adjusts which listings to prioritize based on the user type of the most recent listing. This dynamic approach prevents users from dominating results by posting in blocks, as the sorting automatically shifts to promote diversity after a certain number of consecutive listings from the same user type are displayed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements periodic intervention in the sorting process to prevent user domination. It periodically reviews the composition of the search results and applies corrective sorting adjustments when a single user type begins to dominate. This periodic action ensures that even if users post multiple listings, the search results maintain periodic diversity by interspersing listings from different user types at regular intervals.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods sort publications within a result set based on the entities associated with the publications. For each publication of a plurality of publications in a set, a type of entity associated with the publication is identified. Using a sorting criteria, a sorted set is generated by sorting the plurality of publications in accordance with the sorting criteria by shifting a particular publication from the same type of entity one or more positions in order to satisfy the sorting criteria. The sorted set is provided to a searching user.