Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for searching a collection of objects that may be located in hierarchies of auxiliary information for retrieval of response objects. A framework to perform a generalization search in hierarchies may be used to generalize a search by moving up to a higher level in a hierarchy of taxonomies or to specialize a search by moving down to a lower level in the hierarchy of taxonomies. Once the system may decide to enumerate response objects at a particular level of generalization, a budgeted generalization search may be used for enumerating a set of response objects within a budgeted cost.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for detecting a web page template. A web page template detector may be provided for performing page-level template detection on a web page. In general, the web page template classifier may be trained using automatically generated training data, and then the web page template classifier may be applied to web pages to identify web page templates. A web page template may be detected by classifying segments of a web page as template structures, by assigning classification scores to the segments of the web page classified as template structures, and then by smoothing the classification scores assigned to the segments of the web page. Generalized isotonic regression may be applied for smoothing scores associated with the nodes of a hierarchy by minimizing an optimization function using dynamic programming.

Abstract: A method of segmenting a webpage into visually and semantically cohesive pieces uses an optimization problem on a weighted graph, where the weights reflect whether two nodes in the webpage's DOM tree should be placed together or apart in the segmentation; the weights are informed by manually labeled data.

Abstract: A method for creating informational guides includes receiving a guide specification and a guide content for a plurality of guides; publishing the plurality of guides to a Web-based network for access to users of the network; serving advertising to the plurality of published guides; and rewarding owners of the plurality of published guides by providing compensation thereto based on revenue from the served advertising.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for a web browser toolbar signature. In one example, the method includes receiving a submission of user content from a source webpage, receiving a producer identity of a producer who submitted the user content, receiving identifying information about the destination webpage, coding signed content using the user content and the producer identity, wherein the signed content includes a signature, and submitting the signed content to a server hosting the destination webpage.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and apparatus for matching sets of text to objects are disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment, a set of text is obtained. For instance, the set of text may include a review. A numerical value is determined for each of a plurality of objects, where the numerical value indicates a likelihood that the corresponding one of the plurality of objects is a subject of the set of text. Each of the plurality of objects has an object type defined by a set of one or more attributes, each of the set of one or more attributes having associated therewith a corresponding set of one or more parameters, wherein the numerical value is determined using the set of text and a value of each of the set of one or more parameters for each of the set of one or more attributes. One of the plurality of objects that is most likely to be the subject of the set of text is identified based upon the numerical value that has been determined for each of the plurality of objects.

Abstract: The present invention, in an example embodiment, provides a special-purpose formal language and translator for the parallel processing of large databases in a distributed system. The special-purpose language has features of both a declarative programming language and a procedural programming language and supports the co-grouping of tables, each with an arbitrary alignment function, and the specification of procedural operations to be performed on the resulting co-groups. The language's translator translates a program in the language into optimized structured calls to an application programming interface for implementations of functionality related to the parallel processing of tasks over a distributed system. In an example embodiment, the application programming interface includes interfaces for MapReduce functionality, whose implementations are supplemented by the embodiment.

Abstract: A system and method are provided to accessing a set of web pages within a context. The set of web pages may be represented using a graph comprising a set of nodes and a set of edges. First and second probability distributions may be generated over a set of nodes of the graph using a first algorithm to indicate a measure of closeness among the set of web pages. A characterization may be determined with respect to context for a web page from a second subset of web pages based on the first and second probability distributions. An indication of the characterization of the web page from the second subset of web pages may be outputted.

Abstract: A method is provided to associate reviews that have unknown correspondences to tangible entities to structured objects that have known correspondences to tangible entities comprising: transforming a respective review and text from a respective structured object to a collection of words that intersect the respective review and text from the respective structured object; determining a measure of a likelihood of a match as a function of respective probabilities of occurrences of respective words of such intersecting collection within generic review text and respective probabilities of occurrences of respective words of such intersecting collection within structured object text.

Abstract: Techniques for detecting social influence between users in a set of users with regard to an activity are provided. Data for each user of the set of users is received that includes a time value at which the user became active with regard to the activity, and includes at least one indication of another user in the set of users associated with the user. A first estimate of social correlation in the set of users is determined based on the data. The data is modified. For instance, the data may be modified according to a shuffle test and/or an edge reversal test. A second estimate of social correlation in the set of users is determined based on the modified data. The first estimate is compared to the second estimate to determine a degree of social influence in the set of users.

Abstract: This disclosure provides a method of and service for searching for locations (e.g., web sites) on a network (e.g., the internet). The method begins by inputting a query from a user and searching the internet based on the query to produce search results (comprising web sites) in an order of relevance, where more relevant results are ordered ahead of less relevant results. However, rather than directly reporting the search results to the user as conventional search methodologies do, the invention reorganizes the search results into storylines. More specifically, the invention identifies focused vocabularies from the search results, where each focused vocabulary forms a separate storyline. In addition, the invention maximizes the number of search results that are included in each storyline, minimizes the number of search results that are included in multiple storylines; and also minimizes the number of storylines. Then the invention reports the storylines to the user.

Abstract: The subject matter disclosed herein relates to mitigation of search engine hijacking. In one example implementation, a sentiment value associated with anchortext in a search engine result may be determined. Similarly, a sentiment value of one or more web pages referenced by the anchor text may also be determined. A divergence between sentiment values associated with the anchortext and a web page may then determined.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for detecting a web page template. A web page template detector may be provided for performing page-level template detection on a web page. In general, the web page template classifier may be trained using automatically generated training data, and then the web page template classifier may be applied to web pages to identify web page templates. A web page template may be detected by classifying segments of a web page as template structures, by assigning classification scores to the segments of the web page classified as template structures, and then by smoothing the classification scores assigned to the segments of the web page. Generalized isotonic regression may be applied for smoothing scores associated with the nodes of a hierarchy by minimizing an optimization function using dynamic programming.

Abstract: A geographic region is automatically determined for an Internet resource based on information that has been gathered over time through the automatic monitoring of certain “click” activities of Internet search engine-using users. Over time, the search engine collects information for each click. Using this click-related data, the search engine estimates the geographic region with which the resource ought to be associated. The fact that a significant proportion of clicks on a resource's hyperlink are clicks that “came through” a search engine portal that is associated with a geographic region tends to suggest that the resource ought to be associated with that geographic region. Similarly, the fact that a significant proportion of clicks on a resource's hyperlink are clicks that were made by users whose computers have IP addresses that are associated with a geographic region tends to suggest that the resource ought to be associated with that geographic region.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present inversion relate to a two-pass compression scheme that achieves compression performance on par with existing methods while admitting individual message decompression. These methods provide both storage savings and lower end-user latency. They preserve the advantages of standard text compression in exploiting short-range similarities in data, while introducing a second step to take advantage of long-range similarities often present in certain types of structured data, e.g. email archival files.

Abstract: A social environment is provided by creating an object in response to recognition of an entity in a portion of web content, wherein the object represents the entity, the object is associated with a type selected from a set of types, and the type is associated with a schema selected from a set of schemas, where the social environment includes a set of objects including the object, wherein the objects are instances of corresponding types in a rich system of predefined types, the schemas are associated with the types, metadata is associated with the objects, and there is at least one relationship between at least two objects selected from the set of objects, where the set of objects and the metadata are extensible, such that extensions provided by a first user are available for use by a second user. In one example, metadata provided by a first user is only available to a second user having a relationship with the first user.

Abstract: According to techniques described herein, the best set of quicklinks is picked to maximize the benefits for a majority of the users of a search engine, since the “real estate” on a search results page is constrained and valuable. Quicklinks are navigational shortcuts that are displayed below the website homepage on a search results page. Using user browsing trails obtained from browser toolbars, and a simple probabilistic model, the quicklink selection program is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem. Two techniques are proposed herein: a greedy technique and a tree-based technique. The tree-based technique finds an optimal solution, but may do so in a greater amount of time than the greedy technique takes to find a solution that is not guaranteed to be optimal. The tree-based technique may incorporate natural constraints on the set of chosen quicklinks.

Abstract: An image CAPTCHA having one or more images, a challenge, and a correct answer to the challenge is constructed by selecting the one or more images from a plurality of candidate images based at least in part on each image's public information and private information. The private information of each of the images is accessible only to an entity responsible for constructing the CAPTCHA. Optionally, the one or more images are selected further based on the specific type of the CAPTCHA to be constructed.

Abstract: Embodiments of methods, apparatuses, devices and systems associated with sorting candidate values are disclosed.

Abstract: The subject matter disclosed herein relates to returning cached object results based at least in part on a non-exact comparison with a query key.