Application of breadcrumbs in ranking and search experiences

One or more computer-storage memory devices having embodied thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed, perform a method of improving a user's search experience on a search engine page using an entity data structure generated using breadcrumb elements from a plurality of Web pages, the method comprising:

• receiving at least a portion of a search query inputted by a user;
• accessing a data store that stores the entity data structure generated using the breadcrumb elements from the plurality of Web pages, wherein each breadcrumb element is part of a breadcrumb trail that represents a traversal path associated with each of the plurality of Web pages, the entity data structure in the form of a graph data structure having one or more root nodes, one or more parent nodes, and one or more child nodes;
• using the entity data structure, matching the at least the portion of the search query to a term in a breadcrumb element associated with a first child node in the entity data structure, the first child node having a first parent node;
• determining at least a second child node at the same structural level as the first child node, the second child node sharing a same root node as the first child node;
• identifying a second parent node associated with the at least the second child node, the second parent node being different from the first parent node;
• and
• presenting breadcrumb elements associated with the second parent node and the at least the second child node as at least one search item related to the at least the portion of the first search query on the search engine page, the at least one search item presented simultaneously with a set of algorithmic search results corresponding to the at least the portion of the search query, wherein the at least one search item is presented in a separate area than the set of algorithmic search results.

A computerized method carried out by a search engine running on one or more processors for ranking a Web page on a search engine results page using breadcrumb information associated with the Web page, the method comprising:

• receiving at least a portion of a search query inputted by a user;
• accessing a data store, the data store comprising a plurality of breadcrumb elements associated with a plurality of Web pages;
• matching the at least a portion of the search query to a term associated with a first breadcrumb element;
• determining that the first breadcrumb element is part of a breadcrumb trail associated with the Web page of the plurality of Web pages, the breadcrumb trail comprising a plurality of breadcrumb elements in a structural arrangement;
• determining a first contextual relationship between the first breadcrumb element and the remaining plurality of breadcrumb elements, the first contextual relationship comprising a relative position of the first breadcrumb element compared to the remaining plurality of breadcrumb elements and a textual meaning of the first breadcrumb element and the remaining plurality of breadcrumb elements
• determining a second contextual relationship between the first breadcrumb element and other page elements of the Web page, the other page elements of the Web page comprising at least one of a title, a heading, or a body of the Web page;
• and
• using the first and second contextual relationships to dynamically determine a ranking order of the Web page on the search engine results page.