US 20050228780A1 (19) United States (12) Patent Application Publication (10) Pub. No.: US 2005/0228780 A1 Diab et al. (43) Pub. Date: Oct. 13, 2005 (54) SEARCH SYSTEM USING SEARCH (73) Assignee: Yahoo! Inc., Sunnyvale, CA SUBDOMAIN AND HINTS TO SUBDOMAINS INSEARCH QUERY STATEMENTS AND (21) Appl. No.: 10/819,082 SPONSORED RESULTS ON A SUBDOMAIN-BY-SUBDOMAIN BASIS (22) Filed: Apr. 5, 2004 (75) Inventors: Ali Diab, Atherton, CA (US); Scott A. Gatz, San Francisco, CA (US); Shyam Publication Classification Kapur, Sunnyvale, CA (US); David Ku, Fremont, CA (US); Chuck Kung, Los Altos, CA (US); Phu Hoang, San (51) Int. Cl. ................................................ G06F 17/30 Francisco, CA (US); Qi Lu, San Jose, CA (US); Lynne Pogue, Menlo Park, (52) U.S. Cl. .................................................................. 707/3 CA (US); Yuan Kui Shen, Cupertino, CA (US); Norman Shi, Fremont, CA (US); Thai Tran, Redwood City, CA (57) ABSTRACT (US); Eckart Walther, Palo Alto, CA (US); Jeff Weiner, Palo Alto, CA (US) A method and apparatus for generating Search results includ Correspondence Address: ing Searching by Subdomain and providing sponsored results TOWNSEND AND TOWNSEND AND CREW, by Subdomain is provided. A Search System according to LLP embodiments of the present invention analyzes Search que TWO EMBARCADERO CENTER ries to determine if they are to be routed to Subdomains and EIGHTH FLOOR presents results include Sponsored hits sponsored on a SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111-3834 (US) subdomain by Subdomain basis. FROM SEARCH C C SEARCH QUERY SERVER SEARCH ENGINE FOR 200 RESULTS RELEVANT SUBDOMAIN RESPONSE PAGE CONSTRUCTOR 214 GENERIC AND/OR SUBDOMAIN 216 SPECIFIC DATA SPONSORED LINKS Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 1 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 100 (CD 132(1) SUBDOMAIN CORPUS SEARCH SERVER SUBDOMAIN SERVER SUBDOMAIN PROLESS CORPUS QUERIER RESULTS (ALTERNATE PATH) 105 FIG. 1 FROM OUERY SEARCH C D SEARCH SERVER SEARCH ENGINE FOR 200 RESULTS RELEVANT SUBDOMAIN RESPONSE PAGE CONSTRUCTOR GENERIC AND/OR 220 SUBDOMAIN 16? SPECIFIC g SPONSORED LINKS FIG. 2 Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 2 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 YZJOON, Search Results Stifts Your Search: Camera Search in: The Web Directory News Inside Yahoo! OO 302 Auctions: over 800 Camera products on Yahoo! Auctions Yellow Pages: find a Camera Store near you Directory Category Matches 1 - 3 of 25 Next 20 Photography > Cameras 304 Shopping > Cameras List "Camera" results by location Sponsor Matches " (What are Sponsor Matches?) Camera Specials - Cameras for sale. Complete kits starting at $50 WW.------ CO Camera - Compare Prices at ------- COm - Al------ ..Com, Compare prices, ratings and 306 reviews from name brand stores. WWW.------ CO Digital & 35mm Cameras - Vesibulum Condimentum tortor vitage urna. Mauris at ante lacinia leo lacinia SuScipit. www.loremlpsurnserwer.com Web Matches 1 - 4 of 14,800,000 Next 4 1. La Camera - Praesent ultrices orci. Aenean pretium, neque quis dapibus Sodales. WWW.rsssss Com1 search within this site 2. Digital Camera ReSource Page - Praesent non Orci. Aenean pretium, neque quis dapibus Sedales, Semaugue. WWW.Carea------ resource.COml Search within this site 308 » More sites about: Digital Photography 3. Camera, The WWW.thecamera------ .COml Search within this site More sites about: Local 2 Newspapers 4. CAMERA Studies - pharetra enim, portitor lacinia magna fells ac lectus. Integer 310 Sapien diam, gravidaid. WWW.Camera Studies------- .org/ Search Within this site -ADVERTISEMENT -m- Search in: The Web Directory News 312 Related Searches: digital Camera, Camera review, hidden Camera, video Camera There are more results for camera in.... Search in other search engines 314 Auctions and Yahooligans Copyright 2003 Yahoo! Inc. A rights reserved. Erivacy Policy. Ierms of Services Suggest a Site • AdFeedback F.G. 3 Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 3 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 SEARCH: Weather 94089 FIG. 4 FIG. 5 Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 4 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 SEARCH SERVER SEARCHRESULTS FROM AND SUBDOMAIN SUBDOMAIN m SPECIFIC SERVER INSERTSADS CONSTRUCTOR C C GENERIC INSERTSIADS 710 PARSED REQUESTS PARSER DIRECTEDAT ONE ORMORE SUBDOMAIN SERVERS C C BUSINESS RULES 72 O PREFER ENCES DB HEURISTICS GENERATOR 700 Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 5 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 no" COntains "yes regular Operator (e.g., ) fail Search + error "SUCCeed" call general message Search process token is 5 digits? C CC "fail" SuCCeed legal Check hints "On black-list" black-list not on black-list" dictionarytoken hint?is dictionaryre-direct "no" token is re-direct Weather hint? Weather "no" token is re-direct newShint? to VneWS O token is "fai" maps hint? or "no" "SUCCeed" "timeOut" re-direct to maps Wladdress Query form eOW13s. OaCOS is y YE9 error mSG of unknown token "yes" address "fail"I"time-Out" resolver -"SUCCeed" re-direct to yp error message of FIG. 8 Search with address no address or + query string timeOut Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 6 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 dllH (JEANES 6?I+ Patent Application Publication Oct. 13, 2005 Sheet 7 of 7 US 2005/0228780 A1 S1 RECEIVE SEARCH S2 CHECK FOR SOMETHING POSSIBLY LOCAL USE QUERY-- LOGS - IS THE LOCALTY TOKEN(S) AN XCEPTION S3 PERFORMLOCATION- PROCESS QUERY SPECIFIC SEARCH WITHOUT LOCATION ON REMANDER OF INFORMATION OUERY STRING GET MAP S7 GET YELLOWPAGES S8 COMBINE AND DISPLAY FIG. 10 US 2005/0228780 A1 Oct. 13, 2005 SEARCH SYSTEM USING SEARCH SUBDOMAIN invention might operate entirely within one computer or one AND HINTS TO SUBDOMAINS IN SEARCH collection of computers, thus obviating the need for a QUERY STATEMENTS AND SPONSORED network. RESULTS ON A SUBDOMAIN-BY-SUBDOMAIN 0006 The content itself could be in many forms. For BASIS example, Some content might be text, images, Video, audio, animation, program code, data structures, formatted text, CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED etc. For example, a user might request content that is a page APPLICATION having a news Story (text) and an accompanying image, with 0001. The present application claims the benefit of pri links to other content (Such as by formatting the content ority under 35 USC S119 from U.S. Provisional Patent according to the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is Application Ser. No. 60/460,658, entitled “Search System use at the time). Using Search Subdomain and Hints to Subdomains in 0007 HTML is a common format used for pages or other Search Query Statements and Sponsored Results on a Sub content that is supplied from an HTTP server. HTML domain-By-Subdomain Basis', filed on Apr. 4, 2003, the formatted content might include links to other HTML con disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in tent and a collection of content that references other content its entirety for all purposes. might be thought of as a document web, hence the name “World Wide Web” or “WWW” given to one example of a FIELD OF THE INVENTION collection of HTML-formatted content. As that is a well known construct, it is used in many examples herein, but it 0002 The present invention relates to content retrieval in should be understood that unless otherwise Specified, the general and more particularly to methods and apparatus for concepts described by these examples are not limited to the retrieving content in response to a Search request. WWW, HTML, HTTP, the Internet, etc. 0008. In some instances, content is accessed in response BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION to a request for a uniquely identified content object. For 0003. In a content retrieval system, a user makes a example, a user Seeking to obtain the content of Yahoo!'s request for content and receives content matching that home page for the Yahoo! Sports property can initiate a web request. The user can be a human user interacting with a user browser client and enter in the URL Sports.yahoo.com in a interface of a computer that processes the requests and/or dialog box provided by the web browser client for such forwards the requests to other computer Systems. The user purpose. In response to that request, the web browser client could also be another computer process or System that is programmed to make a request for the Specified page to a generates the request programmatically. In the latter particular Server, which responds with the requested page, instance, it is likely that the requesting computer user will all as is well known to those familiar with request/response also programmatically process the results of the request, but protocols such as HTTP and HTTPS. it might instead be the case that a computer user makes a 0009. In other instances, the user might not have a request and a human user is the ultimate recipient of the Specific URL in mind and instead issues a more general response, or even the opposite, where a human user makes request for content in the form of a Search query. In a typical a request and a computer user is the ultimate recipient of the Search query, the user is presented with a dialog box wherein response. the user enterS Search query terms and initiates a request based on those terms. One example of a Search is a Yahoo! 0004 Content retrieval systems are in common use. One Search. One way to perform a Yahoo! Search is by directing common System in use today is referred to as the Internet, a a web browser client to the page with the URL www.ya global internetwork of networks, wherein nodes of the hoo.com and entering a Search query in the Search dialog network Send requests to other nodes that might respond box provided on that page. In response to Such a query, with content. One protocol usable for content requesting is which the web browser client sends to a www.yahoo.com the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP), wherein an Server (or other server as directed by references contained in HTTP client, such as a browser) makes a request for content the page's HTML or other code), the receiving server in turn referenced by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and an performs a Search or causes a Search to be performed and HTTP server responds to the requests by sending content returns Search results to the web browser client, usually in specified by the URL.