Yahoo! Inc.

Jollify Management Limited

Ralph Rabbat

Richard Kasperski

Shyam Kapur

Ashley Woodman Hall

Mihir Shah

Oliver Thomas Bayley

John Thrall

Alastair Robert Gourlay

Peter Anick

Stephen L Hood

Adam Durfee

Sudipta Guha

Arkady Borkovsky

Karolina Buchner

Providing a speculative search result for a search query prior to completion of the search query is described. In response to receiving a search query from a client node, a speculative search result is provided to the client node for the search query prior to receiving an indication from the client node that said search query is completely formed. The speculative search result may be displayed on the same web page on the client node as the search query, while the search query is being entered by the user. As the user further enters the search query, a new speculative search result may be provided to the user.

Speculative search result on a not-yet-submitted search query

A method for processing query data is described that includes receiving a query portion from a client over a network. For each of multiple search contexts, a relevance score is determined, based on the query portion. Each search context corresponds to a different set of information against which queries can be executed. Indication of the relevance scores is provided to the client over the network. Determining the relevance score and providing indication are performed prior to an input indicating a complete query or in response thereto. The method may also include associating shortcuts with search contexts, selecting a set of shortcuts based, at least in part, on the relevance scores for the search contexts and the association between the shortcuts and search contexts, and sending the set of shortcuts to the client. The shortcuts include links for accessing a content location associated with the shortcut.

Search equalizer

Providing a speculative search result for a search query prior to completion of the search query. In response to receiving a search query from a client node, a speculative search result is provided to the client node for the search query prior to receiving an indication from the client node that said search query is completely formed. The speculative search result may be displayed on the same web page on the client node as the search query, while the search query is being entered by the user. As the user further enters the search query, a new speculative search result may be provided to the user.

A blended query rewrite provider takes as an input a search query and produces a list of query rewrite suggestions. The blended query rewrite provider generates suggestions by applying a number of individual query rewrite providers in series to a query. The sequence in which query rewrite providers are applied to a query is encoded in a query rewrite policy. Policies differ between query types. A policy application engine component selects which policy to apply to a given query based on the cluster to which a query belongs. The policy application engine uses a machine learning algorithm to assign a query to a cluster based on query features. The policy generation engine generates policies and trains the clustering algorithm used by the policy application engine offline based on training data sets and query logs.

Learning query rewrite policies

Performing an ordered search of different databases in response to receiving a search query and without receiving any additional user input

Providing an alternative search query to a predicted search query is disclosed herein. A search query is received from a client node. Prior to receiving an indication from the client node that the search query is completely formed, the following steps are performed: 1) a predicted search query is determined by predicting what the search query will be when completed; and 2) an alternative search query that differs from the predicted search query is determined based on the predicted search query. The alternative search query is provided to the client node. The alternative search query may be something that the user search query is unlikely to complete to. For example, in response to the user entering a search query of 'brittany sp', an alternative search query with a spelling suggestion of 'britney spears' is determined and provided to the user.

Alternative search query prediction

Speculative search result based on a not-yet-submitted search query

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Ralph Rabbat