Ranking External Content Using Social Signals on Online Social Networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016259790-A1
Application number	US-201514640461-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 6, 2015
Priority date	Mar 6, 2015
Publication date	Sep 8, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a query to search for posts of the online social network; searching an index to identify one or more posts of the online social network that match the query, each post linking to an external object hosted by a third-party system, wherein the index includes a counter that records a number of social signals associated with each external object within the online social network; scoring each of the identified posts based at least in part on the counter associated with the external object linked to the post; and sending, to the client system of the first user, a search-results page including one or more search results, each search result including a reference to an identified post having a score greater than a threshold score.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising, by one or more computing devices of an online social network:
receiving, from a client system of a first user of the online social network, a query to search for posts of the online social network; searching an index to identify one or more posts of the online social network that match the query, each post linking to an external object hosted by a third-party system, wherein the index comprises a counter that records a number of social signals associated with each external object within the online social network; scoring each of the identified posts based at least in part on the counter associated with the external object linked to the post; and sending, to the client system of the first user, a search-results page comprising one or more search results, each search result comprising a reference to an identified post having a score greater than a threshold score.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the query comprises one or more n-grams, and wherein searching the index to identify one or more posts of the online social network that match the query comprises searching the index to identify one or more posts of the online social network that match the one or more n-grams of the query.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein each identified post is indexed with one or more keywords matching the one or more n-grams.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the query comprises a one or more topics, and wherein searching the index to identify one or more posts of the online social network that match the query comprises searching the index to identify one or more posts of the online social network that are associated with the one or more topics of the query.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
accessing a social graph comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of edges connecting the nodes, each of the edges between two of the nodes representing a single degree of separation between them, the nodes comprising:
a first node corresponding to the first user;
a plurality of user nodes corresponding to a plurality of second users of the online social network, respectively; and
a plurality of content nodes corresponding to a plurality of posts of the online social network.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein each identified post is authored by a second user of the plurality of second users.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein searching the index to identify one or more posts that match the query comprises:
accessing the index, the index comprising a plurality of entries, and identifying one or more posts linking to one or more external objects based on matching the one or more n-grams of the search query with one or more keywords associated with each post.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the social signals associated with each external object comprise one or more of:
an indication of a post of the one or more posts linking to the external object, the post comprising one or more of:
an original post linking to the external object;
a comment on a post linking to the external object; and
a reshare of a post linking to the external object;
an accessing or viewing of the original post, the comment, or the reshare linking to the external object; a like of the original post, the comment, or the reshare linking to the external object; a click-thru of a link to the external object in the original post, the comment, or the reshare linking to the external object; or any combination thereof.

9 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the index comprises a post index, the post index being a forward index, each entry of the index comprising:
a post ID corresponding to a particular post of the online social network; a link to an external object hosted by the third-party system, the external object being linked in the particular post corresponding to the post ID of the entry of the index, the link being a uniform resource locator (URL) of the external object; and metadata associated with the external object linked in the particular post corresponding to the post ID of the entry in the index, the metadata comprising information associated with the external object.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein each entry of the index further comprises the counter that records the number of social signals associated with the external object linked in the particular post corresponding to the post ID of the entry of the index, the counter comprising:
a global counter that records a total number of social signals associated with the URL for all posts of the one or more posts that comprise the URL; and a local counter that records a number of social signals associated with each URL for a particular post of the one or more posts.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
receiving an indication that a new social signal corresponding to the URL has been added to a particular post on the online social network, updating the local counter associated with the URL for the particular post, updating the global counter associated with the URL for the particular post, determining whether the URL is associated with at least one other post on the online social network, and when it is determined that the URL is associated with at least one other post, updating a global counter associated with the URL for the at least one other post.

12 . The method of claim 8 , wherein the index comprises a web index, the web index being an inverted index, each entry of the index comprising:
a URL of an external object hosted by the third-party system; one or more post identifiers each linking to each of one or more posts of the online social network that comprise the URL of the entry of the index; the counter that records the number of social signals associated with the external object; and metadata associated with the external object linked in the particular post, the metadata comprising information associated with the external object.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the index further comprises a local counter that records a number of social signals associated with the URL for the particular post; and
wherein the counter comprises a global counter that determines a total number of social signals associated with the URL for all posts of the one or more posts that comprise the URL corresponding to the URL ID of the entry of the index by calculating a sum of the number of social signals for each of the local counters.

14 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
receiving a new social signal corresponding to a particular post on the online social network; updating the one or more local counters comprising the URL of the entry of the index; and updating the global counter based on the updated one or more local counters.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the counter comprises one or more of:
a first counter that records a total number of comments received for the external object linked in all posts of the one or more posts that comprise the link to the external object; a second counter that records a total number of reshares for the external object linked in all posts of the one or more posts that comprise the link to the external object; a third counter that records a total number of likes received for the external object linked in all posts of the one or more posts that comprise the link to the external object; a fourth counter that records a total number of click-thrus of a link corresponding to the external object linked in all posts of the one or more posts that comprise the link to the external object, the comments, or the resha

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Mashiach Li-Tal
• Rothschild Michael Yehuda
• Stock Ethan Charles
• Lassen Soren Bogh
• Talwar Mohit

Classifications

• G06F16/24578 Primary

  using ranking · CPC title

• G06F16/9535

  Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation · CPC title

• G06F17/3053 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30867

  Physics · mapped topic