US 2010/0250528 A1 · QUICKLINK SELECTION FOR NAVIGATIONAL QUERY

Abstract

According to techniques described herein, the best set of quicklinks is picked to maximize the benefits for a majority of the users of a search engine, since the “real estate” on a search results page is constrained and valuable. Quicklinks are navigational shortcuts that are displayed below the website homepage on a search results page. Using user browsing trails obtained from browser toolbars, and a simple probabilistic model, the quicklink selection program is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem. Two techniques are proposed herein: a greedy technique and a tree-based technique. The tree-based technique finds an optimal solution, but may do so in a greater amount of time than the greedy technique takes to find a solution that is not guaranteed to be optimal. The tree-based technique may incorporate natural constraints on the set of chosen quicklinks.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method comprising:

automatically selecting, from a set of nodes, one or more quicklink nodes that will maximize a result of an arithmetic combination;
wherein each node in the set of nodes corresponds to a separate web page of a web site;
wherein the arithmetic combination is an arithmetic combination of results of a benefit function that measures, for each particular trail of a plurality of trails of a website, an effect that a presentation of a specified set of nodes as a set of quicklinks would have relative to the particular trail;
wherein each particular trail of the plurality of trails comprises two or more nodes that are from the set of nodes and through which a traversal may be made by following links between nodes in the particular trail;
wherein the benefit function measures a savings in browsing effort that would be obtained by a user if the user could navigate directly to a particular node rather than navigating a trail from a root node of the website to the particular node;
generating a search results page that contains, in association with a search result that corresponds to the root node, one or more hyperlinks that refer to web pages that correspond to the one or more quicklink nodes;
and
presenting the search results page.

5 more elements

A volatile or non-volatile computer-readable storage medium storing one or more instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform steps comprising:

automatically selecting, from a set of nodes, one or more quicklink nodes that will maximize a result of an arithmetic combination;
wherein each node in the set of nodes corresponds to a separate web page of a web site;
wherein the arithmetic combination is an arithmetic combination of results of a benefit function that measures, for each particular trail of a plurality of trails of a website, an effect that a presentation of a specified set of nodes as a set of quicklinks would have relative to the particular trail;
wherein each particular trail of the plurality of trails comprises two or more nodes that are from the set of nodes and through which a traversal may be made by following links between nodes in the particular trail;
wherein the benefit function measures a savings in browsing effort that would be obtained by a user if the user could navigate directly to a particular node rather than navigating a trail from a root node of the website to the particular node;
generating a search results page that contains, in association with a search result that corresponds to the root node, one or more hyperlinks that refer to web pages that correspond to the one or more quicklink nodes;
and
presenting the search results page.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Quicklink selection for navigational query

Life of this patent

Quicklink selection for navigational query

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20