Method of and system for conducting personalized federated search and presentation of results therefrom
The present disclosure provides user-interface methods and systems for submitting search requests to search engines and presenting search results therefrom customized using content preferences learned about a user, comprising sending query information to at least two search engines, including a query identifying desired content, and user information, including context information describing the environment in which the query information is being sent, and a user signature representing content preferences learned about the user; receiving at least one set of a search result and auxiliary information from the at least one search engine in response to sending the query information, including information describing attributes of the search result that led to the search result being chosen by the at least one search engine; ordering the at least one search result based at least in part on the auxiliary information; and presenting the ordered search results to the user.
1. A method for presenting customized search results, the method comprising:
receiving, at a server comprising control circuitry and memory, from a device operated by a user, a query comprising a search request and context information, the context information describing an environment in which the search request was input to the device by the user, the context information adapted into a syntax understandable by a search engine;
in response to receiving the query, retrieving, by the control circuitry, a customized set of search results based on the query and a plurality of learned user preferences contained in a profile corresponding to the user stored in the memory, each search result of the customized set of search results comprising auxiliary information, the auxiliary information including information describing attributes of the search result that led to the search result being chosen by the search engine;
creating a subset of the customized set of search results based on the auxiliary information; and
causing the device to display the subset of the customized set of search results.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising ordering the subset of the customized set of search results based on the context information,
wherein the causing the device to display the subset of the customized set of search results comprises causing the device to display the ordered subset of the customized set of search results.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the auxiliary information includes at least one of:
an identification of a dataspace associated with each search result of the customized set of search results,
an identification of the search engine that provided each search result of the customized set of search results,
a relevance list, wherein a relevance list element represents a set of an attribute of each search result of the customized set of search results and a value indicating a relevance of the attribute to at least one of the query and the plurality of learned user preferences,
a textual location list, wherein a textual location list element represents a location of search terms from the query in fields provided by each search result of the customized set of search results,
a disjunction indicator list, wherein a disjunction indicator list element represents whether a corresponding search term from the query matched each search result of the customized set of search results,
a spelling correction list, wherein a spelling correction list element represents whether a corresponding search term from the search request exactly matched a substring of fields from each search result of the customized set of search results, and wherein the spelling correction list element represents a value indicating a distance between each search term and the matched sub string, if a match was based on an applied spelling correction,
a complete word match list, wherein a complete word match list element represents whether a corresponding search term from the query exactly matched a full word of fields from each search result of the customized set of search results based on an applied spelling correction,
a field match list, wherein a field match list element represents whether the query matched all words of a field of each search result of the customized set of search results,
a location proximity indicator representing a value for a distance from each search result of the customized set of search results to a specified location, and
a location query-place indicator representing whether a part of the search query information matched an entity recognized to be a place having a location.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the context information comprises a time and a location of the device when the search request was input to the device by the user.
5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising ordering the subset of the customized set of search results based on a comparison between search engine general information, the plurality of learned user preferences, and the context information,
wherein the search engine general information describes a corresponding search engine.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the search engine general information includes at least one of a measure of importance relative to other search engines of reordering criteria of different metacontent descriptor fields, a measure of importance relative to other search engines of spelling correction matches, a measure of importance relative to other search engines of disjunction indicators, a relative interpretation of distance compared to other search engines for location indicators, whether an existence of a search result from the search engine indicates that the search result should be presented as important, and a relative importance compared to other search engines of complete word matches.
7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising selecting, among a plurality of search engines, the search engine from which the customized set of search results is retrieved based on a measure of a use by the user of the search engine.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of learned user preferences are learned based on activity of the user or behavior of the user.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the subset of the customized set of search results includes at least one content item.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the at least one content item includes at least one of a contact, device application, music item, web site address, uniform resource locator (URL) for web browsing, business listing, and ring tone.
11. A system for presenting customized search results, the system comprising a server having control circuitry and memory with instructions encoded thereon, the instructions comprising:
an instruction for receiving, at the server, from a device operated by a user, a query comprising a search request and context information, the context information describing an environment in which the search request was input to the device by the user, the context information adapted into a syntax understandable by a search engine;
an instruction for, in response to receiving the query, retrieving, by the control circuitry, a customized set of search results based on the query and a plurality of learned user preferences contained in a profile corresponding to the user stored in the memory, each search result of the customized set of search results comprising auxiliary information, the auxiliary information including information describing attributes of the search result that led to the search result being chosen by the search engine;
an instruction for creating a subset of the customized set of search results based on the auxiliary information; and
an instruction for causing the device to display the subset of the customized set of search results.
12. The system of claim 11 , the instructions further comprising an instruction for ordering the subset of the customized set of search results based on the context information,
wherein the instruction for causing the device to display the subset of the customized set of search results comprises an instruction for causing the device to display the ordered subset of the customized set of search results.
13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the auxiliary information includes at least one of:
an identification of a dataspace associated with each search result of the customized set of search results,
an identification of the search engine that provided each search result of the customized set of search results,
a relevance list, wherein a relevance list element represents a set of an attribute of each search result of the customized set of search results and a value indicating a relevance of the attribute to at least one of the query and the plurality of learned user preferences,
a textual location list, wherein a textual location list element represents a location of search terms from the query in fields provided by each search result of the customized set of search results,
a disjunction indicator list, wherein a disjunction indicator list element represents whether a corresponding search term from the query matched each search result of the customized set of search results,
a spelling correction list, wherein a spelling correction list element represents whether a corresponding search term from the search request exactly matched a sub string of fields from each search result of the customized set of search results, and wherein the spelling correction list element represents a value indicating a distance between each search term and the matched sub string, if a match was based on an applied spelling correction,
a complete word match list, wherein a complete word match list element represents whether a corresponding search term from the query exactly matched a full word of fields from each search result of the customized set of search results based on an applied spelling correction,
a field match list, wherein a field match list element represents whether the query matched all words of a field of each search result of the customized set of search results,
a location proximity indicator representing a value for a distance from each search result of the customized set of search results to a specified location, and
a location query-place indicator representing whether a part of the search query information matched an entity recognized to be a place having a location.
14. The system of claim 11 , wherein the context information comprises a time and a location of the device when the search request was input to the device by the user.
15. The system of claim 11 , the instructions further comprising an instruction for ordering the subset of the customized set of search results based on a comparison between search engine general information, the plurality of learned user preferences, and the context information,
wherein the search engine general information describes a corresponding search engine.
16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the search engine general information includes at least one of a measure of importance relative to other search engines of reordering criteria of different metacontent descriptor fields, a measure of importance relative to other search engines of spelling correction matches, a measure of importance relative to other search engines of disjunction indicators, a relative interpretation of distance compared to other search engines for location indicators, whether an existence of a search result from the search engine indicates that the search result should be presented as important, and a relative importance compared to other search engines of complete word matches.
17. The system of claim 11 , the instructions further comprising an instruction for selecting, among a plurality of search engines, the search engine from which the customized set of search results is retrieved based on a measure of a use by the user of the search engine.
18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the plurality of learned user preferences are learned based on activity of the user or behavior of the user.
19. The system of claim 11 , wherein the subset of the customized set of search results includes at least one content item.
20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the at least one content item includes at least one of a contact, device application, music item, web site address, uniform resource locator (URL) for web browsing, business listing, and ring tone.