Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Steven Tullis

Brian W MacDonald

Steven William Macbeth

Daniel Marantz

Rodney Coleman Edwards

Sanaz Ahari

William R Taylor

Christina Marie Koehn

Paul Ronald Ray

Mira Lane

Keith Alan Regier

Darwin Kengo Yamamoto

Alec John Berntson

Steve Ballon

Laura Kern

Systems, methods, and computer media for enhancing search results, as well as user interfaces for performing search queries and navigating search results, are provided. A search query is received from a user. A plurality of web pages relevant to the search query are identified. At least one of the relevant web pages is identified as popular. A search result page is generated including a search result listing and a search result page header. The search result page header includes a link to the popular web page to provide the user with a quick and easy way to select a popular web page relevant to the user's search query.

Navigation to popular search results

Computer-storage media, methods, and systems for formatting and surfacing a badge are provided. The badge represents a graphical region presented in visual association with a search result on a web-results page. The format of the badge is initially dictated by a template that is automatically generated. Upon collecting performance information, a website owner is granted permission to alter the template and appearance of the badge, via a publisher portal. During interaction with the publisher portal, the website owner is prompted to provide feedback in order to manage parameters of the badge, such as uploading a visual representation of a logo, trademark, or other branded element, or specifying a type of metadata to be imported to the graphical region. Accordingly, the badge operates to improve a users' ability to distinguish between search results on the web-results page and assists users in confidently deciding upon and selecting a relevant search result.

Aiding search-result selection using visually branded elements

The present invention facilitates the sharing of resources among multiple applications hosted on a server using shared resource providers. A shared resource provider is a logical grouping of shared services and resources to support the shared services, and is associated with one or more applications hosted on a computing device. The server fulfills requests for the shared services from the shared resource provider with which the requesting application is associated. Shared resource providers may be associated with many different applications, but each application may be associated with only one shared resource provider. The shared services may be configured for consumption by the applications at the server level, at the level of the shared resource provider, and the level of the application.

Method and system for shared resource providers

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Steven Tullis