Search operation adjustment and re-scoring

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10339144-B1
Application number	US-201514718845-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	May 21, 2015
Priority date	May 21, 2014
Publication date	Jul 2, 2019
Grant date	Jul 2, 2019

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving queries, and for each received query: receiving data indicating resources identified by a search operation as being responsive to the query, wherein the search operation scores each of the resources based, in part, on features of the resource and the query, selecting a subset of the resources, determining, from the subset of resources and for each of the features of the resources and the query, an impact measure that measures the impact of the feature on the ranking of the resources that belong to the subset, adjusting the search operation based on the respective impact measures, and initiating the search operation to re-score the resources in the subset of resources based, in part, on the adjustment and to rank the subset of resources according to a second order that is different from the first order.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by data processing apparatus, the method comprising:
receiving queries, each received query received from a corresponding user device and for each received query:
receiving data indicating resources identified by a search operation as being responsive to the query and ranked according to a first order, each resource having a corresponding search score by which the resources are ranked in responsiveness to the query relative to the other resources identified by the search operation as being responsive to the query, wherein the search operation scores each of the resources based, in part, on features of the resource and the query;
selecting a set of the resources;
determining, from the set of the resources and for each of the features of the resources and the query, a respective impact measure that measures the impact of the feature on the ranking, for the query and relative to historical queries stored in a query log based on a scoring contribution of the feature for the query relative to scoring contributions of the feature for the historical queries, of the resources that belong to the set;
determining that at least one respective impact measure for at least one of the features of the resources and the query meets a corresponding impact measure threshold;
in response to a determination that at least one respective impact measure for the at least one of the features of the resources and the query meets the corresponding impact threshold, re-scoring the resources for the query in the set of the resources based, in part, on the impact measures and ranking the set of the resources according to a second order that is different from the first order;
and providing, to the user device in response to the query, search results according to the second order, each search result identifying a corresponding resource.

2. A method performed by data processing apparatus, the method comprising:
receiving queries, each received query received from a corresponding user device; and for each received query:
receiving data indicating resources identified by a search operation as being responsive to the query and ranked according to a first order, each resource having a corresponding search score by which the resources are ranked in responsiveness to the query relative to the other resources identified by the search operation as being responsive to the query, wherein the search operation scores each of the resources based, in part, on features of the resource and the query that correspond to a set of search operation parameters, and wherein the search operation scores the resources based, in part, on a first set of search operation parameter values for the set of operation parameters, each parameter value corresponding to one of the search operation parameters in the set of search operation parameters;
selecting a subset of the resources;
determining, from the subset of the resources and for each of the features of the resources and the query, a respective impact measure that measures the impact of the search operation parameter on the ranking, for the query and relative to historical queries stored in a query log based on a scoring contribution of the feature for the query relative to scoring contributions of the feature for the historical queries, of the resources that belong to the subset;
determining that at least one respective impact measure for at least one of the features of the resources and the query meets a corresponding impact measure threshold;
in response to a determination that at least one impact measure for at least one of the features of the resources and the query meets the corresponding impact threshold, adjusting the first set of search operation parameter values based on their respective impact measures to generate a second set of search operation parameter values;
and initiating the search operation to re-score the resources for the query in the subset of the resources based, in part, on the second set of search operation parameter values to rank the subset of the resources according to a second order that is different from the first order.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein selecting the subset of the resources comprises selecting N resources ranked in the top N positions in the first order.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein determining for each of the search operation parameters the respective impact measure that measures the impact of the search operation parameter to the ranking of the resources that belong to the subset comprises, for each search operation parameter:
determining, for each resource, a scoring contribution for the resource based on a feature of the resource and the search operation parameter to which features relates;
and determining the respective impact measure for the search operation parameter based on the scoring contributions determined for the resources and the search operation parameter.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein determining the respective impact measure for the search operation parameter based on the scoring contributions determined for the resources and the search operation parameter comprises determining a correlation measure for the search operation parameter based on a correlation of the scoring contributions to the resources and the search scores of the resources.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein determining the respective impact measure for the search operation parameter based on the scoring contributions determined for the resources and the search operation parameter value comprises:
determining a distribution of the scoring contributions for the search operation parameter relative to distributions of scoring contributions for other search operation parameters;
and determining the respective impact measure based on the distribution of the scoring contributions for the search operation parameter relative to distributions of scoring contributions for other search operation parameter.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the search operation parameter values include term weights of resource terms and query terms.

8. The method of claim 4 , wherein the search operation parameter values include authority weights for authority scores of resources, each authority score measuring an authority of a resource relative to other resources.

9. The method of claim 4 , wherein the search operation parameter values include a user feedback signal weight for a user feedback signal for each resource, the user feedback signal being based on a selection rate of the resource in response to a search operation for which a search result referencing the resource is selected.

10. The method of claim 2 , comprising:
for each query, determining whether to re-score the resources in the subset of the resources based on the respective impact measures;
and only for each received query for which the resources in the subset of the resources are determined to be re-scored, performing the adjusting of the first set of search operation parameter values and initiating the search operation to re-score the resources in the subset of the resources.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein determining whether to re-score the resources in the subset of the resources based on the respective impact measures comprises:
determining not to re-score the resources when none of the respective impact measures meets the corresponding impact threshold.

12. The method of claim 2 , wherein initiating the search operation to re-score the resources in the subset of the resources based, in part, on the second set of search operation parameter values and to rank the subset of the resources according to a second order that is different from

Assignees

• Google Llc

Inventors

• Upstill Trystan G
• Madeira Andre Duque
• Dakka Wisam
• Xiu Zhong

Classifications

• G06F16/334 Primary

  Query execution (filtering based on additional data G06F16/335) · CPC title

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• G06F16/24578 Primary

  using ranking · CPC title