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US 8,046,357 B2Granted
Sampling internet user traffic to improve search results
AssigneeIAC Search & Media, Inc.
InventorsAntonino Gulli, Antonio Savona, Monica Mori
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods, systems and apparatus for improving Internet search results include monitoring network activity on a communications network, generating a near real-time map of the network activity, and integrating the near real-time map with a search engine.
Claims48
A method, comprising:
- monitoring network activity in an activity log at a network access node on a communications network, wherein the communications network comprises the World Wide Web (WWW), and wherein the network access node comprises one of a web proxy server and an Internet service provider (ISP), and wherein the network activity comprises web traffic on the WWW;
- transferring network activity data from the activity log to a network traffic monitor via a proprietary data link;
- generating a near real-time map of the network activity from the network activity data, wherein generating the near real-time map of the network activity comprises generating a web graph from the web traffic, the web graph comprising a plurality of web nodes linked by a plurality of web edges, wherein each of the plurality of web nodes represents a corresponding web object and each of the plurality of web edges represents a weighted link from a first web object to a second web object, wherein a weight of the weighted link is based on a frequency of navigation between the first web object and the second web object;
- integrating the near real-time map of the network activity with search engine data acquired via a nonproprietary data link;
- receiving a search request from a user;
- extracting search results in response to the search request according to their relevance to the search request from the search engine data including the integration of the near real-time map of the network activity and the search engine data;
- preparing a list of search results wherein the highest ranked search results are placed at the beginning of the list, the ranking being based on the respective weights of the web edges;
- and
- returning the list of ranked search results to the user.
6 more elements
A system, comprising:
- a memory;
- a communications port coupled to a network access node via a proprietary data link and to a communications network via a non-proprietary data link;
- and
- a processing device coupled with the memory and the communications port, the processing device configured as a search engine and further configured to:
- monitor network activity data in an activity log at an access node on a communications network, wherein the communications network comprises the World Wide Web (WWW), and wherein the network access node comprises one of a web proxy server and an Internet service provider (ISP), and wherein the network activity comprises web traffic on the WWW,
- transfer network activity data from the network access node to the memory via the proprietary data link;
- generate a near real-time map of the network activity from the network activity data, wherein to generate a near real-time map of the network activity the processing device is configured to generate a web graph from the web traffic, the web graph comprising a plurality of web nodes linked by a plurality of web edges, wherein each of the plurality of web nodes represents a corresponding web object and each of the plurality of web edges represents a weighted link from a first web object to a second web object, wherein a weight of the weighted link is based on a frequency of navigation between the first web object and the second web object ;
- integrate the near real-time map of the network activity with search engine data acquired via the nonproprietary data link;
- receive a search request from a user;
- extract the search results in response to the search request according to their relevance to the search request from the search engine data including the integration of the near real-time map of the network activity and the search engine data;
- prepare a list of search results wherein the highest ranked search results are placed at the beginning of the list, the ranking being based on the respective weights of the web edges;
- and
- return the list of ranked search results to the user.
10 more elements
An article of manufacture, comprising a machine-readable storage medium including machine-accessible instructions that when accessed by a data processing system, cause the data processing system to perform operations, comprising:
- monitoring network activity in an activity log at a network access node on a communications network, wherein the communications network comprises the World Wide Web (WWW), and wherein the network access node comprises one of a web proxy server and an Internet service provider (ISP), and wherein the network activity comprises web traffic on the WWW;
- transferring network activity data from the activity log to a network traffic monitor via a proprietary data link;
- generating a near real-time map of the network activity from the network activity data, wherein generating the near real-time map of the network activity comprises generating a web graph from the web traffic, the web graph comprising a plurality of web nodes linked by a plurality of web edges, wherein each of the plurality of web nodes represents a corresponding web object and each of the plurality of web edges represents a weighted link from a first web object to a second web object, wherein a weight of the weighted link is based on a frequency of navigation between the first web object and the second web object;
- integrating the near real-time map of the network activity with search engine data acquired via a nonproprietary data link;
- receiving a search request from a user;
- extracting search results in response to the search request according to their relevance to the search request from the search engine data including the integration of the near real-time map of the network activity and the search engine data;
- preparing a list of search results wherein the highest ranked search results are placed at the beginning of the list, the ranking being based on the respective weights of the web edges;
- and
- returning the list of ranked search results to the user.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.