Abstract: In this invention, systems and methods for providing keywords for advertising are provided. After a user searches for another user in a social network, the webpage or blog of the queried user is retrieved, and keywords are extracted from this webpage. The keywords may be extracted from the user's profile on the social network (e.g., favorite sports, music artists, etc.), or keywords may be extracted from the text of the webpage (e.g., comments that comprise the blog entries). Once extracted, these keywords may then be used by an advertising system to provide targeted advertisements to the user.

Abstract: A system, media, and method for selecting future queries are provided. The selected future queries are used to transmit appropriate online advertising to a user that issues queries to a search engine. The search engine is coupled to a prediction component that predicts what subject the user is going to be interested in and when the user will be interested in the subject. The prediction component returns a future query using statistical language models representing a query history of the user and aggregate query histories for a community of users.

Abstract: This application describes a system and method for estimating user intent towards categories of content. The estimation of user intent may be based at least in part on a score for prior user actions and a decay function that is applied to that score to provide an estimate of current user intent. The estimate represents current user intent for time periods in which user actions towards a category of content are negligible or non-existent.

Abstract: Methods and computer-storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that facilitate classifying user intent with respect to an entity using intent-strength scores. A user query indicating a particular entity is received. The user's intent with respect to the particular entity is determined by assigning an intent-strength score to the user. The user's intent-strength score is determined using intent-strength scores assigned to seed patterns identified for entities in a category, as well as the received user query. In embodiments, a user's intent-strength score may be updated based on a subsequent query, or may be changed according to a function. A list of users having particular intent-strength scores for particular entities may be also be generated.

Abstract: A system, media, and method for selecting future queries are provided. The selected future queries are used to transmit appropriate online advertising to a user that issues queries to a search engine. The search engine is coupled to a prediction component that predicts what subject the user is going to be interested in and when the user will be interested in the subject. The prediction component returns a future query using statistical language models representing a query history of the user and aggregate query histories for a community of users.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that facilitate advertisement selection using advertising units. An entity that is a sequence of two or more words is referenced. The entity includes substrings comprising a portion of the entity. Search data in association with the entity is compared to corresponding search data in association with the substrings of the entity. Based on the comparison, it is determined that the entity comprises an advertisable unit that functions as a unit for purposes of selecting an advertisement for display. The advertisable unit is used to select an advertisement to be presented to the user.

Abstract: A system, media, and method for selecting future queries are provided. The selected future queries are used to transmit appropriate online advertising to a user that issues queries to a search engine. The search engine is coupled to a prediction component that predicts what subject the user is going to be interested in and when the user will be interested in the subject. The prediction component returns a future query using statistical language models representing a query history of the user and aggregate query histories for a community of users.

Abstract: Methods and computer-readable media are provided for defining user intent so that user intent can be determined and advertisements and other information can be provided to a user based on that user's intent. A topical expression is identified and is associated with attributes and actions. Actions indicate steps that can be performed to achieve a task associated with the topical expression. An intent structure is then generated. The intent structure illustrates a relationship between the identified topical expression and other topical expressions. User data may then be received and mapped to the intent structures to determine present and future user intent.

Abstract: This patent application pertains to selecting advertisements for presentation with search results. One example includes receiving a user's search query. This example also includes selecting an advertisement that is relevant for presentation to the user with search results for the search query. The advertisement is selected from a set of advertisements by comparing a semantic context of individual advertisements to a semantic context of the user's search query.

Abstract: Query classification techniques attempt to classify user search queries in order to better understand user search intent. Understanding a user's search intent allows search engines to provide relevant content tailored to the user's interest. Unfortunately, current classification techniques do not take into account contextual information. Accordingly, as provided herein, a target query may be classified based upon contextual information. In particular, features may be extracted from contextual information and/or other sources. For example, features may be extracted from the target query, related queries, and/or invoked search results of the related queries. In this way, the target query may be classified based upon other queries performed by the user and/or search results of the queries the user found interesting. In addition, a CRF model may be utilized in classifying the target query by providing generalized parameters learned from labeled query sessions.

Abstract: A system, media, and method for selecting future queries are provided. The selected future queries are used to transmit appropriate online advertising to a user that issues queries to a search engine. The search engine is coupled to a prediction component that predicts what subject the user is going to be interested in and when the user will be interested in the subject. The prediction component returns a future query using statistical language models representing a query history of the user and aggregate query histories for a community of users.

Abstract: A system, media, and method for selecting future queries are provided. The selected future queries are used to transmit appropriate online advertising to a user that issues queries to a search engine. The search engine is coupled to a prediction component that predicts what subject the user is going to be interested in and when the user will be interested in the subject. The prediction component returns a future query using statistical language models representing a query history of the user and aggregate query histories for a community of users.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that facilitate advertisement selection using advertising units. An entity that is a sequence of two or more words is referenced. The entity includes substrings comprising a portion of the entity. Search data in association with the entity is compared to corresponding search data in association with the substrings of the entity. Based on the comparison, it is determined that the entity comprises an advertisable unit that functions as a unit for purposes of selecting an advertisement for display. The advertisable unit is used to select an advertisement to be presented to the user.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter is directed to constructing query hierarchies in response to a query request. To construct a query hierarchy, a list of related candidate queries is generated in response to the received query request. The list of related candidate queries is generated by determining the relative coverage of information shared by the candidate queries and the query request. Relationships between the submitted query request and the candidate queries in the list are determined based upon the extent of relative coverage of information shared by the candidate queries and the query request. A query hierarchy is then constructed to reflect the determined relationships between the query request and the candidate queries.

Abstract: Described is a technology by which an intermediate taxonomy is processed (e.g., offline) with respect to a target taxonomy to determine relationship values between categories represented in the intermediate taxonomy and the target taxonomy. The relationship values are used to construct a bridging classifier for use in online query processing to relate queries to categories in the target taxonomy. The relation is based on each target category's relationship to one or more categories that were represented in the intermediate taxonomy. Further, only a relevant subset of the categories represented in the intermediate taxonomy may be chosen for use in the bridging classifier, e.g., based on relative probability scores and/or mutual information scores computed between the categories represented in the intermediate taxonomy and categories in the target taxonomy.

Abstract: A method and system for calculating the significance of a sentence within a document is provided. The summarization system calculates the significance of the sentences of a document and selects the most significant sentences as the summary of the document. The summarization system calculates the significance of a sentence based on the “important” words of the document that are contained within the sentence. The summarization system calculates the importance of words of the document using various scoring techniques and then combines the scores to classify a word as important or not important. The summarization system can then be used to identify significant sentences of the document based on the important words that a sentence contains and select significant sentences as a summary of the document.

Abstract: A system, media, and method for selecting future queries are provided. The selected future queries are used to transmit appropriate online advertising to a user that issues queries to a search engine. The search engine is coupled to a prediction component that predicts what subject the user is going to be interested in and when the user will be interested in the subject. The prediction component returns a future query using statistical language models representing a query history of the user and aggregate query histories for a community of users.

Abstract: In this invention, systems and methods for providing keywords for advertising are provided. After a user searches for another user in a social network, the webpage or blog of the queried user is retrieved, and keywords are extracted from this webpage. The keywords may be extracted from the user's profile on the social network (e.g., favorite sports, music artists, etc.), or keywords may be extracted from the text of the webpage (e.g., comments that comprise the blog entries). Once extracted, these keywords may then be used by an advertising system to provide targeted advertisements to the user.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for performing a comparative search. In one example, the comparative search is performed over a network, such as the web, or a database. In one exemplary implementation, a user transmits a plurality of queries which represent the topics that a user wants to compare, and a computing system can automatically retrieve and rank web pages or documents based on both their relevance to queries and the comparative contents they contain. In one such example, the comparative pages are displayed in a pair or other form of a grouping. In another example, comparative results having similar contents may be clustered into meaningful themes.

Abstract: The claimed subject matter is directed to constructing query hierarchies in response to a query request. To construct a query hierarchy, a list of related candidate queries is generated in response to the received query request. The list of related candidate queries is generated by determining the relative coverage of information shared by the candidate queries and the query request. Relationships between the submitted query request and the candidate queries in the list are determined based upon the extent of relative coverage of information shared by the candidate queries and the query request. A query hierarchy is then constructed to reflect the determined relationships between the query request and the candidate queries.