Abstract: Technologies are described herein for placing search results on a search engine results page (SERP). A query may be received. The query may be transmitted to a plurality of search result providers. A first set of search results and a second set of search results may be received from the search result providers. Intent features may be extracted from the first set of search results. User intent of the second set of search results may be inferred based on the extracted intent features. The first set of search results and the second set of search results may be ranked based on the inferred user intent. The SERP may be rendered according to the ranked first set and second set of search results.

Abstract: Computer-readable media and computerized methods are provided for identifying terms associated with one or more queries, including aspects directed to manipulating a list of terms associated with a query class by extracting terms, identifying equivalences or relevant terms, and condensing or expanding the list of terms. In embodiments, synonymous terms can be identified. An updated list of terms can be written to a storage location in association with a query or query class.

Abstract: Methods, computer-storage media, and graphical user interfaces are provided for identifying and presenting rich related sites for task-oriented search queries. Upon receipt of a search query input by a user, one or more query logs are analyzed to determine if the search query is a related to a task being performed by the user. If the query is determined to be a task-oriented search query, search results are identified, as is one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) related to a particular search result. The related URL is presented to the user in association with the particular search result. Additional controls, e.g., search tools that facilitate querying of those URLs determined to be relevant to a particular search result, may also be provided to aid the user in performing the task at hand.

Abstract: Computer-readable media and computerized methods for automatically organizing search results according to task groups are provided. The methods involve aggregating a gallery of entities (e.g., search queries that share a common categorization) into a query class and assigning a dictionary (e.g., list of terms that are drawn from various sources) to the query class. The task groups are identified from the list of terms within the dictionary. The process of identification includes analyzing patterns of user search behavior to select terms from the list of terms, which reflect popular user search intents, and ranking the selected terms based on predetermined parameters to produce an ordering. Based on the ordering, a set of the selected terms that are highest ranked are declared the task groups. The task groups are employed to arrange the search results on a UI display and to provide a consistent and intuitive format for refining a search.

Abstract: Methods, computer-storage media, and graphical user interfaces are provided for identifying and presenting rich related sites for task-oriented search queries. Upon receipt of a search query input by a user, one or more query logs are analyzed to determine if the search query is a related to a task being performed by the user. If the query is determined to be a task-oriented search query, search results are identified, as is one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) related to a particular search result. The related URL is presented to the user in association with the particular search result. Additional controls, e.g., search tools that facilitate querying of those URLs determined to be relevant to a particular search result, may also be provided to aid the user in performing the task at hand.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for providing task-oriented query-completion suggestions are provided. A portion of a search query is received, for instance, via a query-input region or search box presented in association with a general web search domain. As the portion of the search query is received, it is determined that the received search query portion is suggestive of a task-oriented user intent. Also determined are query-completion suggestions that are associated with the task-oriented user intent of which the search query portion is suggestive. The determined query-completion suggestions are then provided to the user. As query-completion suggestions are surfaced with input of short character sequences that are associated with task-oriented user intents, users can quickly be provided the relevant, rich content for completing their intended tasks.

Abstract: Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing devices for facilitating presentation of search result items having varying prominence is provided. The method includes referencing a search result item to be presented within a search results page in response to a search query. Thereafter, a determination is made that a size prominence of the search result item is to be modified. Such a determination can be based on a result attribute(s) associated with the search result item and a result attribute(s) associated with other search result items within the search results page. The size of the search result item is adjusted in accordance with the determination that the size prominence of the search result item is to be modified.

Abstract: Techniques are described herein for processing social search results. Such social search results may be included in a relatively higher-ranked (e.g., a highest-ranked) subset of a user's search results and/or selected from a relatively lower-ranked subset of the user's search results in response to a determination that the relatively higher-ranked subset includes social search result(s). In one example, the social search results (or a subset thereof) may be annotated to include publicly available rich metadata. Such metadata may be extracted from user profiles on social networking domains from which the social search results are received. In another example, the social search results (or a subset thereof) may be clustered such that they are consecutively ranked. In yet another example, the social search results (or a subset thereof) may be configured to be displayed in a designated arrangement (e.g., in a grid having multiple columns).

Abstract: Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing methods are provided for implicitly discovering applications using a query or search results, where the query does not explicitly target a particular application. A search engine is used to receive a user-initiated query and to employ a keyword of the query to generate an initial set of search results. Characteristics of the search results are identified and applications that are relevant to the characteristics are determined. The determination of relevant applications include: accessing an application manifest that manages a mapping between applications and predefined characteristics; comparing the characteristics of the search results against the predefined characteristics of the application manifest to determine a match; and, when a match exists between the search-result characteristics and the predefined characteristics, identifying applications mapped to the matched characteristics as being relevant to the search results.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer media for identifying query rewriting replacement terms are provided. A list of related string pairs each comprising a first string and second string is received. The first string of each related string pair is a user search query extracted from user click log data. For one or more of the related string pairs, the string pair is provided as inputs to a statistical machine translation model. The model identifies one or more pairs of corresponding terms, each pair of corresponding terms including a first term from the first string and a second term from the second string. The model also calculates a probability of relatedness for each of the one or more pairs of corresponding terms. Term pairs whose calculated probability of relatedness exceeds a threshold are characterized as query term replacements and incorporated, along with the probability of relatedness, into a query rewriting candidate database.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer media for identifying related strings for search query rewriting are provided. Session data for a user search query session in an accessed click log data is identified. It is determined whether a first additional search query in the session data is related to a first user search query based on at least one of: dwell time; a number of search result links clicked on; and similarity between web page titles or uniform resource locators (URLs). When related, the first additional search query is incorporated into a list of strings related to the first user search query. One or more supplemental strings that are related to the first user search query are also identified. The identified supplemental strings are also included in the list of strings related to the first user search query.

Abstract: Computer-readable media and computerized methods for automatically organizing search results according to task groups are provided. The methods involve aggregating a gallery of entities (e.g., search queries that share a common categorization) into a query class and assigning a dictionary (e.g., list of terms that are drawn from various sources) to the query class. The task groups are identified from the list of terms within the dictionary. The process of identification includes analyzing patterns of user search behavior to select terms from the list of terms, which reflect popular user search intents, and ranking the selected terms based on predetermined parameters to produce an ordering. Based on the ordering, a set of the selected terms that are highest ranked are declared the task groups. The task groups are employed to arrange the search results on a UI display and to provide a consistent and intuitive format for refining a search.

Abstract: Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing methods are provided for classifying search results as either of good quality or of poor quality. Initially, a portion of the search results, such as the highest ranked documents, are selected for evaluation. A level of quality for each of the selected search results is determined using a classification process that includes the following steps: targeting features demonstrated by the selected search results to be evaluated; evaluating the selected features to generate a level-of-quality score for each of the selected search results; comparing the score against a predefined threshold value; and, based on the comparison, assigning each of the selected search results an absolute measurement. The absolute measurement indicates poor quality when the score is less than the threshold value. Upon recognizing that the selected search results are of poor quality, automatically executing a corrective action that reformulates the issued search query.

Abstract: Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing methods are provided for classifying search results as either of good quality or of poor quality. Initially, a portion of the search results, such as the highest ranked documents, are selected for evaluation. A level of quality for each of the selected search results is determined using a classification process that includes the following steps: targeting features demonstrated by the selected search results to be evaluated; evaluating the selected features to generate a level-of-quality score for each of the selected search results; comparing the score against a predefined threshold value; and, based on the comparison, assigning each of the selected search results an absolute measurement. The absolute measurement indicates poor quality when the score is less than the threshold value. Upon recognizing that the selected search results are of poor quality, a corrective action that reformulates the issued search query is automatically invoked.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and media are provided for facilitating generation of an inference index. In embodiments, a canonical entity is referenced. The canonical entity is associated with web documents. One or more queries that, when input, result in a selection of at least one of the web documents are identified. An entity document is generated for the canonical entity. The entity document includes the identified queries and/or associated text from the content of a document or from an entity title that result in the selection of the at least one of the web documents. The entity document and corresponding canonical entity can be combined with additional related entity documents and canonical entities to generate an inference index.

Abstract: Computer-readable media and computerized methods for automatically organizing search results according to task groups are provided. The methods involve aggregating a gallery of entities (e.g., search queries that share a common categorization) into a query class and assigning a dictionary (e.g., list of terms that are drawn from various sources) to the query class. The task groups are identified from the list of terms within the dictionary. The process of identification includes analyzing patterns of user search behavior to select terms from the list of terms, which reflect popular user search intents, and ranking the selected terms based on predetermined parameters to produce an ordering. Based on the ordering, a set of the selected terms that are highest ranked are declared the task groups. The task groups are employed to arrange the search results on a UI display and to provide a consistent and intuitive format for refining a search.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and media are provided for identifying and clustering queries that are rising in popularity. Resultant clustered queries can be compared to other stored queries using textual and temporal correlations. Fresh indices containing information and results from recently crawled content sources are searched to obtain the most recent query activity. Historical indices are also searched to obtain temporally correlated information and results that match the clustered query stream. A weighted average acceleration of a spike can be calculated to distinguish between a legitimate spike and a non-legitimate spike. Legitimate clusters are combined with other stored clusters and presented as grouped content results to a user output device.

Abstract: Computer-readable media, computer systems, and computing devices facilitate providing entity-specific content to a user in response to a search request. A search request is received from a user and determined to be related to an entity. Domains associated with the entity are also identified. The search service identifies a set of potential answers and uses the potential answers to generate a set of reformulation queries, which are used to query answer services. Answers returned by the answer services are ranked and bound to an entity card, which is subjected to a quorum checking process that facilitates optimization of the use of allocated screen real estate associated with the entity card. A representation of the entity card is presented on a search-results page.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to presenting a suggested search query. Responsive to receiving a user-devised search parameter, a suggested search query is identified. The user-devised search parameter might have been previously received by a search system, or alternatively, might be a unique query that has not been previously received. A suggested search query might be generated using various techniques, such as by applying an n-gram language model. A classification of the suggested search query is determined, and the suggested search query is presented together with a visual indicator, which signifies the classification.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer media for enhancing search results, as well as user interfaces for performing search queries and navigating search results, are provided. A search query is received from a user. A plurality of web pages relevant to the search query are identified. At least one of the relevant web pages is identified as popular. A search result page is generated including a search result listing and a search result page header. The search result page header includes a link to the popular web page to provide the user with a quick and easy way to select a popular web page relevant to the user's search query.