METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PRESENTING CONTENT SUMMARY OF SEARCH RESULTS
Methods, systems and programming for presenting a content summary of search results is described herein. In one example, at least one search result may be fetched based on a search query. A determination may be made that a summary has previously been generated for at least some of the at least one search result, and the summary may be retrieved. A search result page including the at least one search result and at least part of the summary may be generated, and the search result page may be sent in response to the search query.
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/468,049 filed Aug. 25, 2014, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND Technical FieldThe present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for online search. Particularly, the present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for presenting search results to users.
Discussion of Technical BackgroundOnline content search is a process of interactively searching for and retrieving requested information via a search application running on a local user device, such as a computer or a mobile device, from online databases. Online search is conducted through search engines, which are programs running at a remote server and searching webpages or documents for specified keywords and return a search results page having a list of links to the webpages or documents where the keywords are found.
The known search result pages provide a list of links to websites or documents—each with a one-sentence snippet from the webpages, which are incomplete and sometimes redundant.
Therefore, there is a need to provide an improved solution for presenting search results to users to solve the above-mentioned problems.
SUMMARYThe present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for online search. Particularly, the present teaching relates to methods, systems, and programming for presenting search results to users.
In one example, a method, implemented on at least one computing device including at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform connected to a network for presenting a content summary of a search result is provided. In one embodiment, at least one search result may be fetched based on a search query, and it may be determined that a summary has previously been generated for at least some of the at least one search result. The summary may be retrieved, a search result page including the at least one search result and at least part of the summary may be generated, and the search result page may be sent in response to the search query.
In a different example, a system for presenting a content summary is provided. The system may include a search results fetching module, a summary fetching module, and a search results page generating module. The search results fetching module may be configured to fetch at least one search result based on a search query. The summary fetching module may be configured to determine that a summary has previously been generated for at least some of the at least one search result, and retrieve the summary. The search results page generating module may be configured to generate a search result page including the at least one search result and at least part of the summary, and send the search result page in response to the search query.
In another example, a method, implemented on at least one computing device including at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform connected to a network for presenting a content summary of a search result is provided. In one embodiment, a plurality of search queries may be received, each search query of the plurality being substantially similar. Search results based on the plurality of search queries may be fetched. A number of requests may be sent to a content summarization engine to perform real-time content summarization based on the search results. In response to the number of requests reaching a threshold, the content summarization engine may be caused to perform the real-time content summarization to generate a summary for the search results.
The methods, systems, and/or programming described herein are further described in terms of exemplary embodiments. These exemplary embodiments are described in detail with reference to the drawings. These embodiments are non-limiting exemplary embodiments, in which like reference numerals represent similar structures throughout the several views of the drawings, and wherein:
In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth by way of examples in order to provide a thorough understanding of the relevant teachings. However, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present teachings may be practiced without such details. In other instances, well known methods, procedures, systems, components, and/or circuitry have been described at a relatively high-level, without detail, in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring aspects of the present teachings.
Throughout the specification and claims, terms may have nuanced meanings suggested or implied in context beyond an explicitly stated meaning. Likewise, the phrase “in one embodiment/example” as used herein does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment and the phrase “in another embodiment/example” as used herein does not necessarily refer to a different embodiment. It is intended, for example, that claimed subject matter include combinations of example embodiments in whole or in part.
In general, terminology may be understood at least in part from usage in context. For example, terms, such as “and”, “or”, or “and/or,” as used herein may include a variety of meanings that may depend at least in part upon the context in which such terms are used. Typically, “or” if used to associate a list, such as A, B or C, is intended to mean A, B, and C, here used in the inclusive sense, as well as A, B or C, here used in the exclusive sense. In addition, the term “one or more” as used herein, depending at least in part upon context, may be used to describe any feature, structure, or characteristic in a singular sense or may be used to describe combinations of features, structures or characteristics in a plural sense. Similarly, terms, such as “a,” “an,” or “the,” again, may be understood to convey a singular usage or to convey a plural usage, depending at least in part upon context. In addition, the term “based on” may be understood as not necessarily intended to convey an exclusive set of factors and may, instead, allow for existence of additional factors not necessarily expressly described, again, depending at least in part on context.
The present teaching describes methods, systems, and programming aspects of presenting a content summary of search results to users. The methods and systems in the present teaching improve users' search experience by providing smaller complete stories, i.e., summaries, as opposed to multiple story abstracts, which show part of, or redundant snippets of the same story. The summary of the search result(s) provides a user the information that she/he is interested in such that the user does not have to perform any more clicks to reach to the information she/he is interested in. The methods and systems in the present teaching improve user experience by saving the user's time, as the complete story relating to the query is surfaced on the search results page itself. The user can still click on the webpage or other results on the page if the user is interesting, or needs in-depth information on the topic. Accordingly, the methods and systems in the present teaching solve the common problem called “tldr” (too long dint read) in the context of search results.
Additional novel features will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following and the accompanying drawings or may be learned by production or operation of the examples. The novel features of the present teachings may be realized and attained by practice or use of various aspects of the methodologies, instrumentalities and combinations set forth in the detailed examples discussed below.
The geometric parameter (e.g., size) or number of words for each content summary may be limited in the content summary's initial presentation. For example, only part of a content summary 304, 306, 308 is provided in
In this embodiment, in case the content summary has not been generated and stored before in the search results summary database 508, optionally, the content summarization engine 504 may perform automatic content summarization based on one or more search results in real-time. The content summarization engine 504 may fetch the content of the search result(s) from content sources 510-1, 510-2, . . . , 510-n and perform automatic content summarization using any suitable approaches. One example is disclosed in the PCT Patent Application Publication No. WO2013066497, entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY SUMMARIZING THE CONTENTS OF ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS,” which is incorporated herein by reference. Any other known automatic summarization technology, such as extraction-based, abstraction-based, maximum entropy-based, and aided summarization, may be applied by the content summarization engine 504 as well for creating content summarization either offline or at runtime. In this example, a query log database 512 may be used by the search engine 502 and/or the content summarization engine 504 for determining search queries whose search results need to be summarized offline in advance, such as the trending queries.
It is understood that the search engine 502 in this embodiment is not limited to a traditional web search engine that crawls websites on the Internet, builds webpage index, and retrieves webpages based on received keywords. The search engine 502 may be any online system that provides output content/results in response to an input query. The search engine 502 may be an online knowledge-based information retrieving system that provides answers to questions from users. For example, a user may ask a question of “should I leave college to start a business” through the search engine 502, and several answers may be returned on a result page provided by the search engine 502. The answers may be provided automatically based on information in any content source or provided manually by other users. Nevertheless, the content summarization engine 504 may perform automatic content summarization with respect to any answers/results returned from the search engine 502, which are not limited to webpages or documents in the traditional web search engine environment.
Nevertheless, the fetched search result(s) are provided to the summary fetching module 706, which is configured to obtain one or more content summaries with respect to at least one or some of the search results. In one example, the summary fetching module 706 retrieves the content summary, which has been generated before by the content summarization engine 504, from the search results summary database 508. For example, for each of the trending queries, at least one content summary may be pre-generated and stored in the search results summary database 508 as it is very likely that such search query will be requested at a high frequency. Even a search query itself may not be a trending query with pre-generated content summary, a specific search result, e.g., a hot news article, may have been summarized before by the content summarization engine 504. Thus, for any subsequent search query that triggers fetching of the specific search result, the pre-generated content summary can be directly retrieved from the search results summary database 508. In other words, the offline pre-generation of content summary may be conducted at the query level, e.g., for each trending query, or at the search result level, e.g., for a popular search result.
In another example, if there is not any pre-generated content summary available in the search results summary database 508, the summary fetching module 706 in conjunction with the summary control module 708 may optionally send a request to the content summarization engine 504 to perform real-time content summarization based on the fetched search results and return the content summary. It is understood that in some examples, it may not be desirable to keep the user waiting while the content summarization engine 504 is performing the real-time content summarization. In this situation, the search engine 502 may decide not to present the content summary as a response at this time. Instead, the search engine 502 may treat the request as a trigger for the content summarization engine 504 to perform offline content summarization for the search query and/or any search results thereof so that next time when the same search query or search result(s) are received again, the summary fetching module 706 can directly retrieve the already generated content summary. To reduce the system load, in some examples, only when the number of the same request has reached a threshold, i.e., the query or search result has become popular in the general population, the content summarization engine 504 starts to the summarization process for the search result(s). All the decisions regarding the summary fetching and generation in this embodiment may be made by the summary control module 708, which is descried below in detail.
In this embodiment, the search results page generating module 710 is configured to generate and present a search results page to the user as a response to the user input. The search results page generating module 710 receives the fetched search result(s) from the search results fetching module 704 and the content summary of the search result(s) from the summary fetching module 706. As shown in the examples of
The users 506 may be of different types such as users connected to the network 1402 via desktop computers 506-1, laptop computers 506-2, a built-in device in a motor vehicle 506-3, or a mobile device 506-4. A user 506 may send a search query to the search engine 502 via the network 1402 and receive a search results page having search results and one or more content summaries therewith from the search engine 502. The content of at least one or some of the search results is summarized by the content summarization engine 504 offline or on the fly. In this embodiment, as described in detail above, the content summarization engine 504 serves as a backend system for providing content summaries of search results. In addition, in some embodiments, the search engine 502 may access query log, via the network 1402, stored in the query log database 512 to determine trending/popular queries or query suggestions to be provided to the users 506. The information in the query log database 512 may be generated by one or more different applications (not shown), which may be running on the search engine 502, at the backend of the search engine 502, or as a completely standalone system capable of connecting to the network 1402, accessing information from different sources, analyzing the information, generating structured information, and storing such generated information in the query log database 512.
The content sources 510 include multiple content sources 510-1, 510-2, . . . , 510-3, such as vertical content sources (e.g., shopping, local, news, finance, etc.). A content source may correspond to a website hosted by an entity, whether an individual, a business, or an organization such as USPTO.gov, a content provider such as cnn.com and Yahoo.com, a social network website such as Facebook.com, or a content feed source such as tweeter or blogs. The search engine 502 and the content summarization engine 504 may retrieve information from any of the content sources 510-1, 510-2, . . . , 510-3. For example, the search engine 502 crawls the content sources 510-1, 510-2, . . . , 510-3 for building its search index database; the content summarization engine 504 fetches content to be summarized from the content sources 510-1, 510-2, . . . , 510-3.
To implement the present teaching, computer hardware platforms may be used as the hardware platform(s) for one or more of the elements described herein. The hardware elements, operating systems, and programming languages of such computers are conventional in nature, and it is presumed that those skilled in the art are adequately familiar therewith to adapt those technologies to implement the processing essentially as described herein. A computer with user interface elements may be used to implement a personal computer (PC) or other type of work station or terminal device, although a computer may also act as a server if appropriately programmed. It is believed that those skilled in the art are familiar with the structure, programming, and general operation of such computer equipment and as a result the drawings should be self-explanatory.
The computer 1700, for example, includes COM ports 1702 connected to and from a network connected thereto to facilitate data communications. The computer 1700 also includes a CPU 1704, in the form of one or more processors, for executing program instructions. The exemplary computer platform includes an internal communication bus 1706, program storage and data storage of different forms, e.g., disk 1708, read only memory (ROM) 1710, or random access memory (RAM) 1712, for various data files to be processed and/or communicated by the computer, as well as possibly program instructions to be executed by the CPU 1704. The computer 1700 also includes an I/O component 1714, supporting input/output flows between the computer and other components therein such as user interface elements 1716. The computer 1700 may also receive programming and data via network communications.
Hence, aspects of the methods of presenting content summary of search results, as outlined above, may be embodied in programming. Program aspects of the technology may be thought of as “products” or “articles of manufacture” typically in the form of executable code and/or associated data that is carried on or embodied in a type of machine readable medium. Tangible non-transitory “storage” type media include any or all of the memory or other storage for the computers, processors or the like, or associated modules thereof, such as various semiconductor memories, tape drives, disk drives and the like, which may provide storage at any time for the software programming.
All or portions of the software may at times be communicated through a network such as the Internet or various other telecommunication networks. Such communications, for example, may enable loading of the software from one computer or processor into another. Thus, another type of media that may bear the software elements includes optical, electrical, and electromagnetic waves, such as used across physical interfaces between local devices, through wired and optical landline networks and over various air-links. The physical elements that carry such waves, such as wired or wireless links, optical links or the like, also may be considered as media bearing the software. As used herein, unless restricted to tangible “storage” media, terms such as computer or machine “readable medium” refer to any medium that participates in providing instructions to a processor for execution.
Hence, a machine readable medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, a tangible storage medium, a carrier wave medium or physical transmission medium. Non-volatile storage media include, for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as any of the storage devices in any computer(s) or the like, which may be used to implement the system or any of its components as shown in the drawings. Volatile storage media include dynamic memory, such as a main memory of such a computer platform. Tangible transmission media include coaxial cables; copper wire and fiber optics, including the wires that form a bus within a computer system. Carrier-wave transmission media can take the form of electric or electromagnetic signals, or acoustic or light waves such as those generated during radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) data communications. Common forms of computer-readable media therefore include for example: a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, DVD or DVD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards paper tape, any other physical storage medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM and EPROM, a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave transporting data or instructions, cables or links transporting such a carrier wave, or any other medium from which a computer can read programming code and/or data. Many of these forms of computer readable media may be involved in carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to a processor for execution.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that the present teachings are amenable to a variety of modifications and/or enhancements. For example, although the implementation of various components described above may be embodied in a hardware device, it can also be implemented as a software only solution—e.g., an installation on an existing server. In addition, the units of the host and the client nodes as disclosed herein can be implemented as a firmware, firmware/software combination, firmware/hardware combination, or a hardware/firmware/software combination.
While the foregoing has described what are considered to be the best mode and/or other examples, it is understood that various modifications may be made therein and that the subject matter disclosed herein may be implemented in various forms and examples, and that the teachings may be applied in numerous applications, only some of which have been described herein. It is intended by the following claims to claim any and all applications, modifications and variations that fall within the true scope of the present teachings.
Claims
1. A method for presenting a content summary of a search result, the method being implemented on at least one computing device comprising at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform connected to a network, the method comprising:
- fetching at least one search result based on a search query;
- determining that a summary has previously been generated for at least some of the at least one search result;
- retrieving the summary;
- generating a search result page comprising the at least one search result and at least part of the summary; and
- sending the search result page in response to the search query.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the search query comprises at least one of:
- receiving the search query selected from one or more search queries presented to a user; and
- receiving the search query provided by the user.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one search result comprises multiple search results, the summary comprises a combined summary for the multiple search results.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
- receiving a user action to trigger display of the summary associated with the at least one search result, wherein the user action is associated with a particular search result of the at least one search result, and the user action causing a first summary associated with the particular search result to be exposed.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein a number of search results associated with the at least one search result is controlled by a user.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein a number of search results associated with the at least one search result is set by a search engine.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least part of the summary comprises a predetermined number of words of the summary.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein fetching the at least one search result comprises:
- determining one or more verticals from which search results are retrievable, wherein the one or more verticals are specified by at least one of a user and a search engine.
9. A system for presenting a content summary, comprising:
- a search results fetching module configured to fetch at least one search result based on a search query;
- a summary fetching module configured to: determine that a summary has previously been generated for at least some of the at least one search result; and retrieve the summary; and
- a search results page generating module configured to: generate a search result page comprising the at least one search result and at least part of the summary; and send the search result page in response to the search query.
10. The system of claim 9, further comprising:
- a user interfacing module configured to at least one of: receive a selection of the search query from one or more search queries presented to the user; and receive keywords typed by the user.
11. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one search result comprises multiple search results, the summary comprises a combined summary for the multiple search results.
12. The system of claim 9, further comprising:
- a user interfacing module configured to receive a user action to trigger display of the summary associated with the at least one search result, wherein the user action is associated with a particular search result of the at least one search result, and the user action causing a first summary associated with the particular search result to be exposed.
13. The system of claim 9, wherein a number of search results associated with the at least one search result is controlled by a user.
14. The system of claim 9, wherein a number of search results associated with the at least one search result is set by a search engine.
15. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least part of the summary comprises a predetermined number of words of the summary.
16. The system of claim 9, wherein summary fetching module is further configured to:
- determine one or more verticals from which search results are retrievable, wherein the one or more verticals are specified by at least one of a user and a search engine.
17. A method for presenting a summary of a search result, the method being implemented on at least one computing device comprising at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform connected to a network, the method comprising:
- receiving a plurality of search queries, each search query of the plurality being substantially similar;
- fetching search results based on the plurality of search queries;
- sending a number of requests to a content summarization engine to perform real-time content summarization based on the search results; and
- causing, in response to the number of requests reaching a threshold, the content summarization engine to perform the real-time content summarization to generate a summary for the search results.
18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:
- receiving a first search query;
- fetching at least a first search result based on the first search query;
- sending a first request to the content summarization engine to perform real-time content summarization based on the first search result;
- determining, based on the first request, that the first search query and the plurality of search queries are substantially the same;
- retrieving the summary; and
- generating a search result page comprising the at least one first search result and at least part of the summary.
19. The method of claim 17, further comprising:
- receiving a first search query;
- fetching at least a first search result based on the first search query;
- sending a first request to the content summarization engine to perform real-time content summarization based on the first search result;
- determining, based on the first request, that the first search result and the search results are substantially the same;
- retrieving the summary; and
- generating a search result page comprising the at least one first search result and at least part of the summary.
20. The method of claim 17, wherein the number of requests reaching the threshold indicates a popularity of one of the search query or the search results.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 13, 2017
Publication Date: Jan 4, 2018
Inventors: Amol Ghanekar (Sunnyvale, CA), Bharadhwaj Narayanan (Sunnyvale, CA), John Peng (Burbank, CA)
Application Number: 15/702,786