Abstract: In a method for a direct answer for search, a search query is received over a network, one or more answer candidate snippets for the search query are received, with an answer candidate snippet having at least a portion of content available over the network for an answer candidate, one or more answer entities are determined within a selected answer candidate snippet, a frequency of the one or more answer entities found within the one or more answer candidate snippets for the search query is determined, a confidence score is adjusted for the selected answer candidate in accordance with the frequency of the one or more answer entities found within the one or more answer candidate snippets, and at least one answer candidate snippet is sent for a response to the search query.

Abstract: A framework may be used for identifying low-rate search bot traffic within query logs by capturing groups of distributed, coordinated search bots. Search log data may be input to a history-based anomaly detection engine to determine if query-click pairs associated with a query are suspicious in view of historical query-click pairs for the query. Users associated with suspicious query-click pairs may be input to a matrix-based bot detection engine to determine correlations between queries submitted by the users. Those users indicating strong correlations may be categorized as bots, whereas those who do not may be categorized as part of flash crowd traffic.

Abstract: In a method for a direct answer for search, a search query is received over a network, one or more answer candidate snippets for the search query are received, with an answer candidate snippet having at least a portion of content available over the network for an answer candidate, one or more answer entities are determined within a selected answer candidate snippet, a frequency of the one or more answer entities found within the one or more answer candidate snippets for the search query is determined, a confidence score is adjusted for the selected answer candidate in accordance with the frequency of the one or more answer entities found within the one or more answer candidate snippets, and at least one answer candidate snippet is sent for a response to the search query.