Yahoo! Inc.

Colin Brady

Rica Gonen

Techniques are described to improve search results using a panel. A search engine deploys one or more network traffic monitors. Traffic monitors analyze network traffic and find HTTP requests made to search engines. When a search query is spotted, the traffic monitor records the sequence of user requests, including search engine, search terms, and sites visited. A sequence of queries where a user visits one search engine, enters a query, visits zero or more sites from the results listings, and visits a second search engine, enters a query and visits one or more websites and stops searching is used to determine whether to increase or decrease a relevance value between a search term and the sites visited.

Adjusting stored query relevance data based on query term similarity

An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for allocating web page placements in online publishing of content. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for sampling content items by allocating web page placements of varying quality for content items and optimizing the payoff to maximize revenue. Publishers may provide content items to be published and report their valuation per click. Through a process of valuation discovery, the click-through rate for content items and the value of content items may be learned through sampling. As the process of valuation discovery progresses, the present invention may more closely approximate the click-through rates for content items in order to allocate web page placements to content items that may optimize content layout by maximizing revenue. The present invention may accurately learn the CTR for new content items and support multiple web page placements of varying quality.

System and method using sampling for allocating web page placements in online publishing of content

Systems and methods are described for searching a publicly accessible network (e.g., the Internet) with an efficient use of space on a display device (e.g., a monitor, a screen) of a computer. Computers often use graphical interfaces for user interaction, and thus graphical space can be in short supply during some applications. In addition, requiring a user to navigate various graphical interfaces to access a searching utility can increase the effective time of the searching operation. Systems and methods are described for searching a network in an efficient and effective manner.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Colin Brady