User interfaces for search systems using in-line contextual queries

1. A method comprising:

sending, to a client, a page of content, the page of content including instructions that, when interpreted by a content presentation application at the client, cause the content presentation application to perform:

displaying at least first content, wherein said first content is a subset of the content in said page;

displaying one or more contextual search icons;

wherein each contextual search icon displayed as a result of interpreting the page is associated with a different portion of the content of the page than each other contextual search icon, the different portion including content that is outside of the contextual search icon and not associated with any other contextual search icon;

wherein said contextual search icons include a particular contextual search icon associated with the first content;

detecting a user selection of the particular contextual search icon;

in response to detecting the user selection, and while continuing to display at least a portion of said page, displaying an expanded contextual search interface corresponding to the particular contextual search icon, the expanded contextual search interface including both (a) a query entry area configured to accept entry of one or more query terms from the user and (b) a search submission control element;

wherein the expanded contextual search interface was not displayed prior to detecting the user selection of the particular contextual search icon; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein displaying the expanded contextual search interface includes displaying the query entry area as an element of the page.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein displaying the expanded contextual search interface includes displaying a pop-up element containing the query entry area.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the instructions in the page of content are further configured to cause the content presentation application to perform: submitting a search request comprising the one or more query terms and data representative of the first content to a search server upon selection of the search submission control element.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the instructions in the page of content are further configured to cause the content presentation application to perform:

receiving search results in response to the search request;

displaying the search results in the expanded contextual search interface, while continuing to display at least a portion of said page.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the data representative of the first content is one of: the first content, or a context vector derived from the first content.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the data representative of the first content is a context vector, the context vector containing one or more terms extracted from the first content.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the instructions in the page of content are further configured to cause the content presentation application to perform:

prior to the user submitting any query data, sending a search request comprising data representative of the first content to a server;

prior to the user submitting any query data, in response to sending the search request to the server, receiving from the server, for display with said expanded contextual search interface, a list of hits generated based on a search using the data representative of the first content; and

while continuing to display at least a portion of said page, prior to the user submitting any query data, displaying the list of hits in or adjacent to said expanded contextual search interface.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the data representative of the first content is one of: the first content, or a context vector derived from the first content.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the data representative of the first content is a context vector, the context vector containing one or more terms extracted from the first content.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the instructions in the page of content are further configured to cause the content presentation application to perform: submitting a search request comprising the one or more query terms and the data representative of the first content to a search server upon user selection of the search submission control element.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the instructions are configured to cause the content presentation application to display the one or more contextual search icons and display the expanded contextual search interface by, at least in part, retrieving code blocks from a server and executing code in the code blocks.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by a content presentation application, further cause generating the expanded contextual search interface via an application programming interface (API) from a server.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content in the page of content includes hyper-text markup language (HTML) content, wherein the instructions include JavaScript code inserted into the HTML content.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

identifying the different portions based on an analysis of the page prior to the instructions being in the page;

for each of the different portions:

tokenizing the portion of content to generate tokens;

generating a context vector based on the tokens; and

adding to the instructions a code block for generating a contextual search interface based on the context vector;

inserting the instructions into the page of the content;

wherein the expanded contextual search interface is configured to submit a particular context vector, with the one or more query terms, to a search server.

16. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of:

displaying at least first content, wherein said first content is a subset of content in a page of content;

displaying one or more contextual search icons;

wherein each contextual search icon displayed as a result of executing the instructions is associated with a different portion of the content of the page than each other contextual search icon, the different portion including content that is outside of the contextual search icon and not associated with any other contextual search icon;

wherein said contextual search icons includes a particular contextual search icon associated with the first content;

detecting a user selection of the particular contextual search icon;

in response to detecting the user selection, and while continuing to display at least a portion of said page, displaying an expanded contextual search interface corresponding to the particular contextual search icon, the expanded contextual search interface including both (a) a query entry area configured to accept entry of one or more query terms from the user and (b) a search submission control element;

wherein the expanded contextual search interface was not displayed prior to detecting the user selection of the particular contextual search icon.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein displaying the expanded contextual search interface includes displaying the query entry area as an element of the page.

18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein displaying the expanded contextual search interface includes displaying a pop-up element containing the query entry area.

19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by the one or more computing devices, further cause: submitting a search request comprising the one or more query terms and data representative of the first content to a search server upon selection of the search submission control element.

20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 19 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by the one or more computing devices, further cause:

receiving search results in response to the search request;

displaying the search results in the expanded contextual search interface, while continuing to display at least a portion of said page.

21. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 19 , wherein the data representative of the first content is one of: the first content, or a context vector derived from the first content.

22. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 19 , wherein the data representative of the first content is a context vector, the context vector containing one or more terms extracted from the first content.

23. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by the one or more computing devices, further cause:

prior to the user submitting any query data, sending a search request comprising data representative of the first content to a server;

prior to the user submitting any query data, in response to sending the search request to the server, receiving from the server, for display with said expanded contextual search interface, a list of hits generated based on a search using the data representative of the first content; and

while continuing to display at least a portion of said page, prior to the user submitting any query data, displaying the list of hits in or adjacent to said expanded contextual search interface.

24. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 23 , wherein the data representative of the first content is one of: the first content, or a context vector derived from the first content.

25. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 23 , wherein the data representative of the first content is a context vector, the context vector containing one or more terms extracted from the first content.

26. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 23 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by the one or more computing devices, further cause: submitting a search request comprising the one or more query terms and the data representative of the first content to a search server upon user selection of the search submission control element.

27. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by the one or more processors, cause the content presentation application to display the one or more contextual search icons and display the expanded contextual search interface by, at least in part, retrieving code blocks from a server and executing code in the code blocks.

28. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the instructions, when interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause generating the expanded contextual search interface via an application programming interface (API) from a server.

29. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the content in the page of content includes hyper-text markup language (HTML) content, wherein the instructions include JavaScript code inserted into the HTML content.

30. A system comprising one or more processors at one or more computing devices coupled to a network, the one or more processors configured to perform:

receiving a page of content from a requester over the network;

modifying the page of content to include instructions that, when interpreted by a content presentation application at the client, cause the content presentation application to perform: displaying at least first content, wherein said first content is a subset of the content in said page;

displaying one or more contextual search icons;

wherein each contextual search icon displayed as a result of interpreting the page is associated with a different portion of the content of the page than each other contextual search icon, the different portion including content that is outside of the contextual search icon and not associated with any other contextual search icon;

wherein said contextual search icons include a particular contextual search icon associated with the first content;

detecting a user selection of the particular contextual search icon;

in response to detecting the user selection, and while continuing to display at least a portion of said page, displaying an expanded contextual search interface corresponding to the particular contextual search icon, the expanded contextual search interface including both (a) a query entry area configured to accept entry of one or more query terms from the user and (b) a search submission control element;

wherein the expanded contextual search interface was not displayed prior to detecting the user selection of the particular contextual search icon; and

returning the page of content over the network to the requester.

31. The system of claim 30 , wherein the content in the page of content includes hyper-text markup language (HTML) content, wherein modifying the page of content to include instructions comprises inserting JavaScript code into the HTML content.

32. The system of claim 30 , further comprising:

a search server;

wherein the one or more processors are further configured to perform, for each different portion of the content:

tokenizing the portion of content to generate tokens;

generating a context vector based on the tokens; and

encoding the context vector;

wherein the expanded contextual search interface is configured to submit an encoded context vector, with the one or more query terms, to the search server.