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Cross-language search

Cross-language search description/claims

This Application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/974,332, filed on Sep. 21, 2007.

This disclosure is related to cross-language searching.

The number of web pages written in certain languages (e.g., English) may be much larger than the number of web pages written in other languages. This disparity is due in large part to the number of speakers of the certain languages and the widespread availability of technology in the countries where those languages are spoken. Moreover, such pages are often better maintained and capable of providing more accurate and updated information about many subjects than are pages in other languages. Accordingly, people who speak a language that is not widely used on the web might nevertheless be interested in the information found on a web page available in other languages (e.g., English). Thus, searching the web pages written in the language used to submit a search query may not always satisfy a searcher's query, because relevant results might not even exist in the searcher's language.

For example, people in Egypt are sometimes interested in information about traveling to places that are outside of the Middle East, studying in foreign universities, or learning about famous non-Egyptian people. However, there might not be many pages related to these topics in the language used to submit the query, i.e., the user's native language. Moreover, the pages that are in the user's native language may be of relatively low quality, since the authors of the page may not have ample access to such topics. Additionally, such users may not be able to issue queries in another language because the users do not speak another language. Thus, these users may be unable to find relevant and/or quality content.

In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in a system that includes an input module, an evaluation module and an output module. The input module can receive an original search query in a first language, the original search query being a request for documents relevant to the original search. The evaluation module can receive a first set of relevance scores associated with results from the original search query and a second set of relevance scores associated with results from a translated search query in a second language. The evaluation module can compare the first and second sets of relevance scores to determine whether the original search query or the translated search query produces the most relevant results. The output module can provide search results including at least a portion of one or both of the results from the original search query or the results from the translated search query to a user based on the whether the original search query or the translated query has the most relevant results. Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding methods, apparatus, and computer program products.

An example method for performing cross-language searching can include: receiving an original search query in a first language; obtaining a translated search query associated with the original search query, the translated search query being in a second language; evaluating the translated search query to determine whether the translated search query is a candidate for a cross-language search based on: a relevancy score associated with the results of the translated search query, a translation confidence score associated with the translation, or a search query including an entity associated with the first or second languages; and serving a search results page based on the result of the evaluation.

The details of one or more embodiments of the subject matter described in this specification are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter will become apparent from the description, the drawings, and the claims.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram depicting an architecture of a cross-language search system.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating an example cross-language search system.

FIG. 1C is a block diagram illustrating an example implementation of the query evaluation module.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a query evaluation module.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating another example cross-language search system.

FIGS. 4-7 are block diagrams illustrating some implementations of an evaluation module.

FIGS. 8-10 are flowcharts illustrating example processes of providing a cross-language search.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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