QUESTION AND ANSWER SEARCH
Exemplary methods, computer-readable media, and systems are presented for leveraging question-answering knowledge from community sites by complementing product search services with a search of questions, answers, reviews and other Internet accessible content including user-generated content. Product or service information is obtained by crawling Internet-accessible Web sites including community sites. An integrated index of such information is generated. A user is able to browse questions by product or service feature, by topic, by identified comparative questions, and by question ranking (for example, interestingness or popularity).
1 . A system for sorting information extracted from one or more community sites, the system comprising:
a memory and a processor;
a crawler stored in the memory, and configured when executed on the processor, to crawl and extract information from one or more community sites; and
an indexer stored in the memory and configured, when executed on the processor, to:
identify a plurality of questions from the information, wherein each question is related to at least one product or service;
group each question by product or service into a group for each product or service identified from the plurality of questions;
label each question with one or more of a plurality of identified features of a product or service to which each question is related;
group each question into a feature group, one feature group for each identified feature, any questions which are identified as related to a particular identified feature; and
provide the questions sorted by product or service and by feature group.
2 . The system of claim 1 wherein the indexer is further configured to:
identify one or more answers associated with any of the questions from the information, wherein each question is related to at least one product or service;
group each answer with its respective question;
label each answer with one or more of the plurality of identified features of a product or service to which each question is related; and
provide the answers sorted by question, by product or service, and by feature group.
3 . The system of claim 1 wherein the indexer is further configured to:
extract a plurality of topics from the plurality of questions;
identify questions which are related to any of the plurality of topics;
group into a topic group, one topic group for each topic, any question which is identified as related to a particular topic of the plurality of topics; and
provide the questions related to any of the topics sorted by topic group.
4 . The system of claim 2 wherein the indexer is further configured to:
identify all questions or answers which compare two or more products or two or more services as respectively comparative questions and comparative answers; and
respectively group into comparative question groups or comparative answer groups the respective comparative questions and comparative answers which compare a same two or more products or two or more services.
5 . The system of claim 1 wherein the indexer is further configured to:
after identifying a plurality of questions from the information, determine for each question a lexical relevance to a subject of a search query; and
rank each question by lexical relevance.
6 . The system of claim 1 wherein the indexer is further configured to:
identify any questions which have been tagged with a user-generated label as tagged questions;
identify any questions which have not been tagged with a user-generated label as untagged questions;
predict, for each untagged question, whether the untagged question would likely have been tagged and identifying each such question as a likely tagged question; and
group likely tagged questions, if any, with tagged questions, if any, into a tagged question group; and
wherein the system further comprises a server configured to:
determine for each question a lexical relevance to a subject of a search query;
rank each question by a relevance score, wherein the relevance score is a combination of lexical relevance and label;
provide the questions of the tagged question group sorted by feature, by relevance score and by label.
7 . A method of ranking information related to products or services, the method comprising:
crawling one or more community sites to extract information;
identifying a plurality of portions of information related to a particular product or service from each of the one or more community sites;
labeling each portion of information with at least one of a plurality of identified features of the particular product or service;
identifying portions of information which are related to any of the plurality of identified features;
grouping into a feature group, one feature group for each identified feature, any portions of information which are identified as related to a particular identified feature; and
providing the portions of information sorted by feature group.
8 . The method of claim 7 wherein the portions of information are either a question or an answer, and wherein the one or more community sites are sites that accept user generated questions and answers.
9 . The method of claim 7 wherein the method further comprises:
extracting a plurality of topics from the plurality of portions of information;
identifying portions of information which are related to any of the plurality of topics;
grouping into a topic group, one topic group for each topic, any portions of information which are identified as related to a particular topic of the plurality of topics; and
providing the portions of information related to any of the topics sorted by topic group.
10 . The method of claim 7 wherein the plurality of identified features is pre-selected by an administrator.
11 . The method of claim 8 wherein the method further comprises:
identifying any questions or answers which compare two or more products or two or more services as respectively comparative questions and comparative answers; and
respectively grouping into comparative question groups or comparative answer groups the respective comparative questions and comparative answers which compare a same two or more products or two or more services.
12 . The method of claim 7 wherein the method further comprises:
identifying all portions of information which are a question;
identifying any questions which have been tagged with a user-generated label as tagged questions;
identifying any questions which have not been tagged with a user-generated label as untagged questions;
predicting, for each untagged question, whether the untagged question would likely have been tagged and identifying each such question as a likely tagged question;
grouping likely tagged questions, if any, with tagged questions, if any, into a tagged question group; and
providing the questions of the tagged question group sorted by feature and then by label.
13 . The method of claim 7 wherein the method further comprises:
determining for each portion of information a lexical relevance to a subject of a search query; and
after identifying the plurality of portions of information related to a particular product or service from each of the one or more community sites, ranking each portions of information by lexical relevance.
14 . The method of claim 12 wherein the method further comprises:
determining for each portion of information a lexical relevance to a subject of a search query; and
after identifying the plurality of portions of information related to a particular product or service from each of the one or more community sites, ranking each portions of information by a relevance score, wherein the relevance score is a combination of lexical relevance and label.
15 . One or more computer-readable storage media comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method, the method comprising:
crawling one or more community sites to extract information;
identifying a plurality of portions of information related to a particular product or service from each of the one or more community sites;
labeling each portion of information with at least one of a plurality of identified features of the particular product or service;
identifying portions of information which are related to any of the plurality of identified features;
grouping into a feature group, one feature group for each identified feature, any portions of information which are identified as related to a particular identified feature; and
providing the portions of information sorted by feature group.
16 . The computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the portions of information are either a question or an answer, wherein the one or more community sites are sites that accept user generated questions and answers, and wherein the plurality of identified features is generated by a feature extractor.
17 . The computer-readable storage media of claim 16 wherein the method further comprises:
identifying any questions or answers which compare two or more products or two or more services as respectively comparative questions and comparative answers; and
respectively grouping into comparative question groups or comparative answer groups the respective comparative questions and comparative answers which compare a same two or more products or two or more services.
18 . The computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the method further comprises:
extracting a plurality of topics from the plurality of portions of information;
identifying portions of information which are related to any of the plurality of topics;
grouping into a topic group, one topic group for each topic, any portions of information which are identified as related to a particular topic of the plurality of topics; and
providing the portions of information related to any of the topics sorted by topic group.
19 . The computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the method further comprises:
identifying all portions of information which are a question;
determining for each question a lexical relevance to a subject of a search query;
identifying any questions which have been tagged with a user-generated label as tagged questions;
identifying any questions which have not been tagged with a user-generated label as untagged questions;
predicting, for each untagged question, whether the untagged question would likely have been tagged and identifying each such question as a likely tagged question;
grouping likely tagged questions, if any, with tagged questions, if any, into a tagged question group;
ranking each question by a relevance score, wherein the relevance score is a combination of lexical relevance and label; and
providing the questions of the tagged question group sorted by feature and then by ranking.
20 . The computer-readable storage media of claim 15 wherein the method further comprises:
determining for each portion of information a lexical relevance to a subject of a search query; and
after identifying the plurality of portions of information related to a particular product or service from each of the one or more community sites, ranking each portions of information by lexical relevance.