Yahoo! Inc.

Venkat Panchapakesan

Brian Lange Acton

Xuejun Wang

John Patrick Connelly

Seth Godin

Eric Boyd

Thomas Churchill

David Conway

Henry Hyunsuk Sohn

A method and apparatus for generating search results with higher relevancy. More specifically, the present invention provides a listing of narrowing or related search terms based upon the search term submitted by the user. The present invention effectively guides users to narrow their search by guiding users to select or click on highly related search terms. In one embodiment, the listing of the highly related search terms is generated in accordance with sales and/or click information, e.g., via scoring of search terms that is premised on sales and/or click information.

Method and apparatus for performing a search

A method and apparatus for generating search results with higher relevancy. The present invention exploits the fact that users' choices on each given search term tend to converge to several products from several merchants, and all of the results are very relevant to the search term. In one embodiment, these results are used to decide the order of merchants for each search term. By learning the users' choices, especially from purchasing and/or clicking information, highly relevant and most popular products can be assigned a higher score or rank over text relevant only products.

Method and computer storage medium for search scoring

An electronic auction system known as the Yahoo! Auction System provides functionality that permits users to conduct auction transactions with various payment units, such as incentive points and credit points, as well as money. Points can be earned in a variety of ways and redeemed via online auctions. The Yahoo! Auction System includes a web server, a messaging server, a database server, and various databases including an account database for storing information about account balance, expiration date for each point or group of points, and redemption information. The Yahoo! Auction System provides different auction formats, such as Standard Auction, Dutch Auction, Progressive Auction, Buy-or-Bid Auction, and Declining Bid Auction. The Yahoo! Auction System reserves the bid amount associated any new valid bid in the bidder's account and unreserves those bid amounts that were previously reserved but are no longer the winning bid or otherwise displaced from the top bid positions.

Auction redemption system and method

Method and computer readable medium for search scoring

Growing community of inventors

Newark, CA, United States of America

Venkat Panchapakesan