Yahoo! Trend Analysis Looks To Personalize Search

May 17, 2005

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Yahoo Trend Analysis Looks To Personalize Search

Yahoo! has introduced a new patent that may help to create more personalized search results with a process called trend analysis. Shyam Kapur of Yahoo! applied for THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PEOPLE THINK AND COMPUTER THINK The patent application addresses how search engines and algorithms have a general inability to recognize contexts and conceptual word linkage. For example, a query for "New York City" is different than a query for "New York City Law Enforcement." Search engines as they are can only recognize that "New York City" is mentioned in both results, but the relevance is lost. The newly patented process will also build associations between "law enforcement" and "police," allowing for nuance and "relatedness" results. An excerpt from the patent application: Current technologies at any of the major search providers, e.g., MSN, Google or any other major search engine site, do not understand queries the same way that human beings create them. For instance, existing search engines generally search for the exact words or phrases the user entered, not for the underlying natural concepts or related concepts the user actually had in mind. This is perhaps the most important reason that prevents search providers from identifying a user's intent and providing optimal search results and content. The trend analysis system aims to mirror the way people conceptualize search terms. Another example of personalization is for general contexts. A 21-year-old enters the search term "singers" and the system could be more likely to bring up "Avril Lavigne" than "Celine Dion" who would be more popular among older users. It is warned that the results may not be 100% accurate, as everything depends upon user behavior. "It should be understood that these inferences are not guaranteed to be accurate; they reflect how the user behaves and not necessarily who the user is. Any inferences made about a particular user can be used to tailor responses to further queries entered by that user, again using the trend data as one indication of likely user intent. Thus, trend data may be used to customize the response of a search server to the particular user who enters a query," according to the patent application.

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