Google Inc.

Timo Burkard

Arvind Jain

David Presotto

Christopher Bentzel

Dominic Hamon

Ziga Mahkovec

A computer-implemented method and system for prerendering web content are described. A computing device determines a navigation event within a web browser based at least in part on a prerender tag embedded within a web page. The prerender tag includes a ranking value used to rank links to prerender and a time parameter. The computing device requests content associated with the navigation event and prerenders the content associated with the navigation event in an alternate instance of the web browser that is hidden from a user of the web browser. The computing device determines whether the user has selected the navigation event within a time period based on the time parameter associated with the prerender tag. The alternate instance of the web browser containing the prerendered content in a current user instance of the web browser may be displayed. The computing device may discard the prerendered content.

Methods for prerendering and methods for managing and configuring prerendering operations

A method and system for improving access to network content are described. Aspects of the disclosure minimize the delay between a navigation event and a network response by prerendering the next navigation event. For example, the method and system may predict a likely next uniform resource locator during web browsing to preemptively request content from the network before the user selects the corresponding link on a web page. The methods and systems describe a variety of manners for prerendering content and managing and configuring prerendering operations.

Access to network content

A method and system for predicting a next navigation event are described. Aspects of the disclosure minimize the delay between a navigation event and a network response by predicting the next navigation event. The system and method may then prerender content associated with the next navigation event. For example, the method and system may predict a likely next uniform resource locator during web browsing to preemptively request content from the network before the user selects the corresponding link on a web page. The methods describe a variety of manners of predicting the next navigation event, including examining individual and aggregate historical data, text entry prediction, and cursor input monitoring.

Predicting user navigation events

Aspects of the disclosure provide a system and method for prerendering of search result pages. A search engine may process search queries received from a client. The search engine may determine one or more search results in response to the search query. One or more of the search results may be associated with prerender instructions, such that when the search results are received by the client, the client prerenders the search results associated with the prerender instructions. Prerender instructions may be associated with the search results in various manners, including ranking the search results based on relevance, or ranking the search results based on the likelihood of selection. Metrics and analytical data may be collected from the client to improve the search result prerendering process.

System and method for improving access to search results

A method and system for improving access to network content are described. Aspects of the disclosure minimize the delay between a navigation event and a network response by prerendering the next navigation event. For example, the method and system may predict a likely next uniform resource locator during web browsing to preemptively request content from the network before the user selects the corresponding link on a web page, where the network content includes a second portion including an advertisement and a first portion that does not include the advertisement. Responsive to the request, the first portion of the network content is provided without the second content. When a user selects a navigation event associated with the network content, the second portion for display is provided to the user with the first portion. The methods and systems describe a variety of manners for prerendering content and managing and configuring prerendering operations.

A method and system for improving access to network content are described. Aspects of the disclosure minimize the delay between a navigation event and a network response by prerendering the next navigation event. For example, the method and system may predict a likely next navigation event during web browsing to preemptively request content from the network before the user selects the corresponding link on a web page. The prediction operation may identify correlations between metadata associated with a navigation history. The metadata may include the relationship of the selected navigation events to a web page. By making predictions using link page relationships links may be accurately predicted in circumstances where two links share common relationships to their source page but different destination addresses.

A system and method is provided wherein, in one aspect, a currently-requested item of information is stored in a cache based on whether it has been previously requested and, if so, the time of the previous request. If the item has not been previously requested, it may not be stored in the cache. If the subject item has been previously requested, it may or may not be cached based on a comparison of durations, namely (1) the duration of time between the current request and the previous request for the subject item and (2) for each other item in the cache, the duration of time between the current request and the previous request for the other item. If the duration associated with the subject item is less than the duration of another item in the cache, the subject item may be stored in the cache.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Timo Burkard