Google Inc.

Bruce Winston Murphy

Radu Jurca

Michael Steven Perrow

Jordan John Bayliss-McCulloch

Kendra Jay Carattini

Pascal Fleury

Grim H Iversen

Yifei Lu

Michal Gornisiewicz

A method for defining a relevant area for displaying advertisements based on a category of a user search is disclosed. The method includes receiving a search request from a user; determining a business category based on the search request; determining a location associated with the search request; determining business category density information based at least on the determined business category and the location associated with the search request; determining an extent based on business category density information for the location; determining local content to provide to the user based at least in part on the determined extent, the business category, and the location; and providing for display to the user the local content, wherein the local content is provided to the user in addition to the search results. The location may be explicitly included in the search request, associated with responsive search results, or associated with the search request.

Defining relevant content area based on category density

A spelling system derives a language model for a particular domain of structured data, the language model enabling determinations of alternative spellings of queries or other strings of text from that domain. More specifically, the spelling system calculates (a) probabilities that the various query entity types&#x2014;such as STREET, CITY, or STATE for queries in the geographical domain&#x2014;are arranged in each of the various possible orders, and (b) probabilities that an arbitrary query references given particular ones of the entities, such as the street 'El Camino Real.' Based on the calculated probabilities, the spelling system generates a language model that has associated scores (e.g., probabilities) for each of a set of probable entity name orderings, where the total number of entity name orderings is substantially less than the number of all possible orderings. The language model can be applied to determine probabilities of arbitrary queries, and thus to suggest alternative queries more likely to represent what a user intended.

Training a probabilistic spelling checker from structured data

A system and computer-implemented method are provided for associating categories with business names for generalizing search queries, the method including identifying one or more businesses within a first geographic region, determining a business name and one or more categories for each of the one or more businesses, generating one or more name components for each of the one or more businesses from the name of the business, generating one or more name component groups from the name components of the one or more businesses, each name component group including one or more identical name components, determining for each name component group, if the one or more name components within the name component group are associated with businesses that share one or more common categories and associating the one or more common categories with the name component of the name component group.

Category generalization for search queries

Provided is a process for identifying a new business listing, the process including: identifying, from a log of local search queries, a term that does not correspond to a name of a business listing; determining a number of recent search queries containing the term and a number of historical search queries containing the term; determining that a rate based on the number of recent search queries exceeds a threshold rate based on the number of historical search queries; and identifying the term as a name of a new business listing.

Detecting new businesses with unrecognized query terms

Methods, systems, user interfaces, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, for presenting query results. A method includes: receiving a query; responsive to the query, providing a map including a viewport showing a first location and results that are associated with the query; receiving an indication that a user is interacting with the map, including panning, scrolling, repositioning, or zooming, to enable a second, different location to be visible in the viewport; determining that the user has arrived at the second, different location, the second, different location being visible in the viewport as a result of the panning, scrolling, repositioning, or zooming; automatically, without requiring the user to resubmit the query, re-running the query for the second, different location; and presenting query results along with the viewport showing the second, different location.

Determining user attention

A system and machine-implemented method for associating a product category of consumer products with a location is provided. Data corresponding to consumer products is received, using one or more computing devices. Data for each of the consumer products includes corresponding location information. Each of the consumer products is identified based on the received data, using the one or more computing devices. A product category for each of the identified consumer products is determined, using the one or more computing devices. The consumer products are grouped based on the determined product categories and the corresponding location information, using the one or more computing devices. At least one determined product category is associated and stored with at least one location based on a density of the grouped consumer products and the corresponding location information, using the one or more computing devices.

System and method for calculating store display layouts

Provided is a process of and apparatus for spatially indexing geographic items. The process may include obtaining geographic-item data identifying geographic items, the geographic location of each item, and an attribute of each item, wherein the geographic-item data identifies values of key-value pairs to be formed in a spatial index; obtaining a plurality of geographic-location keys each corresponding to a geographic area, the geographic-location keys identifying keys of the key-value pairs to be formed in the spatial index; and pairing each geographic-location key with an item among the geographic-item data. Pairing may be performed by: calculating distances between the geographic location of each of the items and the geographic-location key; weighting each of the distances based on the attribute of the item corresponding to that distance; and selecting the geographic item having the closest attribute-weighted distance as the item to be paired with the geographic-location key.

Weighted-distance spatial indexing

A system and machine-implemented method for determining a language intent of a user submitted query is provided. A user query comprising text and a user location is received and a language usage signal based on the text of the user query is identified, wherein the language usage signal is associated with a first language. A second language associated with the user location is identified and a translation of the text of the user query from the first language to the second language is generated. A strength of the language usage signal is determined based on an amount of variation between the text of the user query and the translation of the text. When the strength of the language usage signal is greater than a predetermined threshold, an output language for the query is adjusted and results for the query are returned according to the output language.

Determining user language intent

A software module provides multiple individually selectable items via a user interface. The software module detects a contact with an area on the user interface that includes several of the individually selectable items in a first relative arrangement. The software module determines that the contact corresponds to an attempted selection of a single item. The software module provides a disambiguation menu for selecting the single item from among the several individually selectable items within the area, and arranges the several individually selectable items in the disambiguation menu according to a second relative arrangement different from the first relative arrangement.

System and method for disambiguating item selection

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining categories for geographic data. In general, one aspect includes a method implemented by one or more processing devices that includes receiving, by one or more processors, geographic information data from a database, the geographic information data comprising location points and being divided into geographic areas, at least some of the geographic areas containing one or more location points, at least some of the location points being associated with at least one category, identifying, by one or more processors, for at least some of the geographic areas, a dominant category, based on categories associated with the location points contained within the geographic areas, and storing, by one or more processors, the dominant category in association with the respective geographic area in the database.

Determining categories for geographic data

A synonym module analyzes a set of names for entities, such as names of streets and cities within a geographic database, and adds synonym names to the entities based on the analysis. More specifically, based on adjacencies of words within the names, the synonym module formulates a set of synonym rules specifying permissible ways of spelling a single word as multiple words (or vice-versa). The synonym module applies the synonym rules to the names, and if one of the rules matches a name, the synonym module adds an associated synonym name based on the name and on the rule matching the name. User queries for named entities in the database may then take into account not only the original names of the entities, but also any added synonym names.

Automatic derivation of synonym entity names

A system and machine-implemented method for determining a language intent of a user submitted query is provided. A user query comprising text is received and a location of the user based on the received user query is determined. At least one language usage signal from the text of the user query is identified. A strength of the at least one language usage signal is determined based on the received user query and the determined location of the user. When the strength of the at least one language usage signal is greater than a predetermined threshold, an output language for the query is adjusted based on the language usage signal. Results for the query are returned according to the output language.

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Pyrmont, Australia

Bruce Winston Murphy