Web browser with enhanced history classification

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11526575-B2
Application number	US-202016941831-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 29, 2020
Priority date	Jul 29, 2020
Publication date	Dec 13, 2022
Grant date	Dec 13, 2022

Abstract

An add-on for, or additional functionality integrated in, a web browser of the kind that logs visited web pages in history with their URL, HTML page title and a date/time stamp is provided. The history may additionally logs category tags and their confidence scores. The category tags may originate at least in part by extracting them from visited page content and may also propagate through from previously visited pages, for example when a page is opened by hyperlink from another page, the latter's category tags propagate through to the new page. The page-specific confidence scores may be determined by applying a scoring formula that mimics a user's mental association between a category tag and a web page. The category tags and their confidence scores may be then stored in the history log entry and the category tags may then be used to search the history.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of operating a browsing session with a web browser, the web browser being operable to present web pages to a user and to navigate between web pages by following hyperlinks, the method comprising:
analyzing a visited web page to identify text terms of significance for the visited web page and selecting candidate category tags for the visited web page, the candidate category tags comprise the identified text terms of significance, and
selecting additional candidate category tags for the visited web page based on a linked web page, in response to the visited web page being opened via a hyperlink from the linked web page;
determining a confidence score for each of the candidate category tags and for each of the additional candidate category tags by applying a scoring formula, the scoring formula being configured to mimic a user's mental association between a category tag and the visited web page and are also based on a number of occurrences of the identified text terms associated with each respective category tag and also based on a semantic position of the identified text terms within the visited web page associated with each candidate category tag and with each additional candidate category tag;
augmenting a confidence score for each of the candidate category tags and for each of the additional candidate category tags for a web page found in a search history of the web browser;
adding a special metadata parameter value for logging each of the candidate category tags and for each of the additional candidate category tags for a web page retrieved from a category tag search, wherein the special metadata parameter value is specific to a category tag and forms a measure of a value of a category tag dependent on a retrieval frequency number and a dwell time per visit of the associated web page;
selecting a set of category tags from the candidate category tags and the additional candidate category tags based on a respective confidence score exceeding a confidence score threshold; and
writing a log entry for the visited web page to a history log, each log entry comprising metadata comprising: a URL of the visited web page, a HTML, page title of the visited web page, a date and time stamp, the selected set of category tags, and the confidence score for each category tag of the set of category tags.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein
the web browser is configured to support browsing sessions with multiple simultaneously open browsing tabs, and wherein the candidate category tags further comprises category tags from web pages of other open tabs.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein
the scoring formula has a factor for candidate category tags that originate from other web pages based on a similarity between the visited web page and the other web page.

4. The method according to claim 3 , wherein
a similarity factor between the visited web page and the other web page is based on the category tags of the other web page are identified as text terms of significance.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein
the web browser is configured to support bookmarks in which the user is able to store the URLs of web pages selected by the user in a folder structure with a page name,
wherein each folder has a folder name that is definable by the user,
a page name of the currently visited web page and a folder name of the currently visited web page are each a candidate category tag.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein
additional metadata further comprises an indicator of whether the currently visited web page is bookmarked.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
allowing the user to manually edit the history log and add a user defined category tag to a given web page's history log entry.

8. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
allowing the user to manually edit the history log and identify a category tag of a given web page's history as not being representative of the user's mental association with the currently visited web page.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein
inclusion of a category tag of another web page in the candidate category tags is conditional on obtaining user input to confirm that the user associates the candidate category tag from the other web page with the currently visited web page.

10. The method according to claim 6 , further comprising:
amending the history log responsive to user interaction with the web browser.

11. The method according to claim 10 , further comprising:
as a history entry is used to access a web page via use of that category tag in a search by the user, the metadata is amended responsive to analysis of use of category tags in searches made by the user such that the confidence score of a category tag of the history.

12. The method according to claim 10 , wherein
the additional metadata further comprises a category tag specific relevance parameter whose value is set responsive to a history entry being used to access a web page via use of that category tag in the user interface.

13. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
storing additional metadata conditional on the currently visited web page being visited for an amount of time greater than a threshold value.

14. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
providing a website from which an add-on may be downloaded to a third party computing device on request; and
causing the add-on to be sent via a network connection to the third party computing device in response to such a request together with an installer for integrating the add-on with a web browser installed on the computing device.

15. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
searching the history log based on category tags entered by the user via a user interface in order to present a filtered selection of log entries as search results; and
opening a web page chosen from the search results via the user interface.

16. A computer system for operating a browsing session with a web browser, the web browser being operable to present web pages to a user and to navigate between web pages by following hyperlinks, the computer system comprising:
one or more computer processors, one or more computer-readable storage media, and program instructions stored on the one or more of the computer-readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more processors, wherein the computer system is capable of performing a method comprising:
analyzing a visited web page to identify text terms of significance for the visited web page and selecting candidate category tags for the visited web page, the candidate category tags comprise the identified text terms of significance, and
selecting additional candidate category tags for the visited web page based on a linked web page, in response to the visited web page being opened via a hyperlink from the linked web page;
determining a confidence score for each of the candidate category tags and for each of the additional candidate category tags by applying a scoring formula, the scoring formula being configured to mimic a user's mental association between a category tag and the visited web page and are also based on a number of occurrences of the identified text terms associated with each respective category tag and also based on a semantic position of the identified text terms within the visited web page associated with each candidate category tag and with each additional candidate category tag;
augmenting a confidence score for each of the candidate category ta

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Waterton Thomas James
• Thomas Caroline J
• Hewitt James
• Jacks Richard

Classifications

• G06F16/9562

  Bookmark management · CPC title

• G06F16/9577

  Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents · CPC title

• G06F16/9535

  Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation · CPC title

• G06F16/9558

  Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations · CPC title

• G06F16/9574 Primary

  of access to content, e.g. by caching · CPC title