ITMO20110277A1 - SYSTEM FOR WEB RESEARCH BASED ON GEOGRAPHICAL PARAMETERS - Google Patents

Description

"WEB SEARCH SYSTEM BASED ON GEOGRAPHICAL PARAMETERS".

DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a system for carrying out web searches on the basis of geographical parameters.

The Internet has an innumerable amount of resources which mainly consist of pages formatted using special markup languages, such as the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) or the Extensible Markup Language (XML). These pages are structured in the form of textual information possibly enriched with images and videos.

Given the vast amount of web resources available, typically users wishing to carry out a search use a search engine which, based on sophisticated algorithms, selects the web pages that are most responsive to the request. The user can access the web page of the search engine using a web browser or "browser" and then submit a query, called "query", consisting of one or more words, possibly combined with Boolean logic, which contain the salient features the subject of your research. Search engines collect information on web pages relevant to the user's query by relying on specific databases indexed according to the most varied criteria and organized in such a way as to provide quick answers and as relevant as possible to the subject of the user search. Usually, in order to retrieve these web pages, search engines use specific algorithms, implemented through programs called "crawlers", whose task is to automatically browse the web, identify new sites and related pages, analyze them on the basis of predetermined criteria, such as the analysis of metatags, and to classify the pages on the basis, for example, of keywords considered essential.

The use of increasingly sophisticated portable devices, such as smartphones or tablet PCs, and their ability to access the Internet via WiFi and / or third and fourth generation mobile phone networks, have meant that one of the search criteria from the most interesting perspectives is that of a geographical nature. A user looking for a particular point of interest (hereinafter referred to as "POI"), such as a restaurant, a shop, a bank, and so on, through his / her portable device can submit a search engine to a query that contains not only the name or classification of the POI or other keyword associated with that POI, but also the geographic location of interest, for example the string "restaurant Milan". The search result is usually presented on the portable device in the form of a map, which indicates the POIs located at various distances from the position indicated by the user. Alternatively, a user can type only the name of the place of interest and obtain as a result a map in which a plurality of POIs are displayed.

A disadvantage of currently known applications is that it is possible to display a POI on a map only if, previously, those who want to report their POI have activated to manually create a special information sheet, here called Gl ("Geographic Information") and to report it to the managers of online maps and satellite navigators.

Another drawback of the prior art is that, with the current POI search systems, an excessive number of results can be obtained, due mostly to the fact that very popular POIs can be reported but too far from the point in which the location is located. user who submitted the query.

Another drawback is that the information contained in the information sheets associated with such POIs may be inaccurate, as their source may not be reliable. In fact, the list of POIs to be installed, for example, on car satellite navigators is often provided by various communities of Internet users, which could provide incorrect information.

The aim of the present invention is to overcome the limitations of the prior art highlighted above, proposing a system capable of carrying out web searches based on the geographical distance between the user carrying out the search and the position of the POI which are precise and reliable.

Within this aim, an object of the present invention is to provide a system which facilitates the creation and management of information relating to each POI by the relative owner or manager.

Another object is to devise a system which allows a greater degree of accuracy and reliability of position-based web searches with respect to known systems.

A further object of the present invention is to allow the display on digitized maps of the information contained in the information cards associated with said POIs.

This aim, these aims and others which will become clearer in the following, are achieved by a system according to claim 1.

Further characteristics and advantages of the invention will become clearer from the description of a preferred but not exclusive embodiment of the system according to the invention, illustrated, by way of non-limiting example, in the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a block diagram of a system according to the present invention;

figure 2 is a block diagram of a web page and a purely textual page according to the system of figure 1;

Figure 3 shows an example of embodiment of the databases of the system of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a flow diagram of the operation of the system of Figure 1.

An exemplary architecture of the system according to the present invention is represented in the block diagram of Figure 1.

The illustrated system comprises, directly or indirectly connected to the Internet 180, one or more websites 100, a crawler 120, a first database 130, a second database 140, a bot 150, a search engine 160 and a plurality of electronic devices 170, 170 ', 170' '.

The website 100 is of a known type and consists of a set of correlated web pages 110, 110 ', 110' ', that is a hypertextual structure of documents which resides, through "hosting", on a web server, not illustrated. The website 100 belongs to or is directly managed by the owner or manager of a POI, or in any case is directly connected to its activity, which can be of a commercial or social nature (shop, restaurant, cinema, hospital, place of worship, etc. ). This website 100 is accessible to a user, through a web browser installed in the electronic device 170, 170 'and 170' 'which the user has to access the Internet 180.

The web pages 110, 110 ', 110' 'are electronic documents, written in a markup language such as, for example, HTML or the like, which include textual content and possibly images, scripts, videos and "style sheets" . The particular structure of the web page 110 will be discussed in greater detail with reference to Figure 2.

The crawler 120, also called "spider", is a software associated with the search engine 160 and which, with known algorithms, explores the Internet, taking information from web pages and following the hyperlinks contained therein, usually starting from a list of websites predetermined by the search engine manager 160.

The databases 130 and 140 are per se of a known type and are suitable for storing information relating to the web pages 110, 110 ', 110' 'of each web site 100. The new logical structure of the databases 130 and 140 will be detailed below with reference to figure 3.

Bot 150 is a program that performs automatic operations on the Internet including copying information between databases or obtaining information from them.

The search engine 160 is essentially a program which, using certain algorithms of a known type per se, has the task of finding information, such as pages, videos, images and the like on the web on the basis of specific requests or "queries" by the users through devices 170, 170 ', 170' 'and to present this information in a list or on a digitized map. The search engine 160 according to the invention is also based on an algorithm capable of calculating the distance between two given geographical coordinates, preferably available in the form of latitude or longitude.

The devices 170, 170 ', 170' 'can be smartphones, tablet PCs, notebooks or personal computers and are equipped with a screen and means to allow a connection to the Internet, through a WiFi type access network and / or a telephone network, fixed or mobile, not illustrated.

The elements 100, 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170, 170 ', 170' ', are all reachable through the Internet 180 network and, for this reason, they have been shown connected directly to it, although there may be networks of access, proxies or other intermediate elements, not illustrated for reasons of simplicity.

With reference to Figure 2, the structure of one of the web pages 110, 110 ', 110' 'and of a textual page 240 of information on the POI according to the present invention will now be illustrated in greater detail.

The web page 110 is a document written in a markup language, for example in HTML, and containing a plurality of syntactic elements, identified by markup instructions per se of a known type such as tags 210, 210 ', 210' '. A further syntactic element of this document is identified by a particular indicator, for example a tag or, more preferably, a metatag, the content of which is normally invisible in the web page that includes it but easily identifiable by crawlers and bots with techniques such as known.

In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the page 110 comprises a meta tag 220 whose body 230 is a reference or link to a purely textual structured page 240 of the website 100. The person skilled in the art will understand that this meta tag 220, indicated in the figures with "GeoLL", can be added to any existing web page in a completely transparent way without altering its operation or the way in which the objects it contains are presented.

The purely textual structured page 240, also indicated in the figures as "GeoPage", is part of the website 100 and is characterized by the fact that it includes the geographical coordinates of the site's POI, preferably expressed in terms of longitude and latitude or in any case in an understandable way. by the tools of geographic localization on the map of known type. If there are several geographical addresses of a POI associated with the same owner or manager (think, for example, of the branches of a bank), page 240 will contain the respective geographical coordinates of each of these addresses, in the figures indicated briefly with "posi; posN ".

Furthermore, page 240 may contain information on the classification of the POI (for example, "cinema", "restaurant", "carpenter", etc.) as well as possibly other information aimed at facilitating the geographical location and providing additional details of various kinds, which keywords associated with the POI activity, for example the products sold at that POI.

The content of the purely textual page 240 is essentially to be interpreted as an information sheet of the POI, completely corresponding to the sheets Gl discussed here in the introductory part, with the difference that this information sheet belongs to the website 100 of the owner or manager of the POI, or is linked to the domain of the website 100. Consequently, the management of the purely textual structured page 240 is delegated directly to the owner or manager of the POI who, as mentioned, is also the owner or manager of the contents of the associated website 100 at the POI, thus making the content of page 240 entirely trustworthy.

Advantageously, by means of page 240, the relative content must not be reported by the owner or manager of the POI to all possible manufacturers of satellite navigation devices or to the managers of the maps available online.

In fact, the metatag 220 is suitable for being identified by the crawler 120 during the patrol of the Internet network 180, with techniques known per se, so that the body of this metatag 230 can be stored in the first database 130.

In this way, a robot such as the bot 150 can autonomously and automatically obtain all the information contained in page 240, which will be stored in the second database 140 to which the search engine 160 will refer.

The skilled in the art can understand that the choice of one or more web pages 110, 110 ', 110' 'in whose sources the new metatag 220 can be included must be such as to make it easy for the crawler to identify the metatag 220. 120.

Figure 3 shows the logical structure of the databases 130 and 140 according to the present invention. These databases can be recorded on the same memory medium or on different memory media, as long as they are accessible via the Internet 180.

The first database 130, preferably of the relational type, has stored at least a first table 310 which has at least two fields, in particular a first field 320 and a second field 330. The first field 320 preferably contains a hypertext link, in the form of an address URL, of the web page 110 which includes the meta tag 220. The second field 330, on the other hand, preferably contains the hypertext link, also in the form of a URL address, of page 240.

The second database 140, accessed by the search engine 160 in response to a query from the user of the devices 170, 170 'and 170' ', is also preferably of the relational type and has stored at least a second table 340, whose fields are filled in by the bot 150 using the information contained in a structured way on 240 pages: for example, a first field 350 containing the aforementioned hyperlink, in the form of a URL, of page 240, a second field 360 containing the domain of the site web 100 associated with the POI, a third field 370 containing the classification of the POI, a fourth field 380 containing the geographical coordinates of the POI in terms of latitude and longitude and possibly other fields 390 containing additional information, such as keywords associated with the activity of the respective THEN.

Therefore, each textual page 240 identified corresponds to a tuple in the second table 340.

With reference to Figure 4, the operation of the illustrated embodiment is as follows.

At step 600 a user through a device 170, 170 ', 170' 'connects to the search engine 160 and carries out a search, entering a query comprising a search expression, a maximum distance and a geographical position desired by the user.

The search expression can contain a POI identifier, such as "restaurant XYZ", and / or a keyword associated with the POI activity, such as a product sold, a movie title, rating, etc. For example, the user could use the word "pizza" in conjunction with the desired position and maximum distance, and thus obtain a larger result that includes various POIs that are associated with the keyword "pizza" and that are within the maximum distance. indicated by the user with respect to the desired position (therefore not only restaurants, but also trattorias, pizzerias, fast food restaurants, canteens, etc.). This keyword could be a word previously stored in field 390 of the second database 140 and in any case in the purely textual structured page 240. Again, a user might want to have lunch at a restaurant belonging to a renowned chain and in this case the search expression it could include the brand name of that chain. Furthermore, a user may want a particular type of cuisine and could then type in a term that classifies it, such as "ethnic Japanese cuisine". In other words, this search expression can include any type of information or set of information that can be associated with the POI, for example its identifier or the commercial name of the POI, its salient attribute, its classification or a product or activities associated with that POI. Obviously, the more specific the search expression, the more relevant the result obtained.

The desired position can be provided by the user in the form of a street address or geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude), it can be determined by the user by retrieving it from a known online map, or it can be determined automatically by the device 170, 170 ' , 170 '' with known localization tools, for example WiFi, telephone or IP triangulations, or by means of a GPS locator possibly present in the device 170, 170 ', 170' '.

The maximum distance entered in the search engine 160 expresses the maximum geographic distance allowed between the position of the POI and the position desired by the user.

At step 610 the search engine 160 identifies, using per se known algorithms, the hyperlinks of possible relevance to the user's search query.

At step 620 the results are selected by the search engine 160. This selection consists in identifying, with the aid of a suitable algorithm, among the results obtained in the previous step, only those whose domain is present in the second database 140. This selection is further refined with the help of an additional algorithm that selects only those hyperlinks associated with POIs whose geographical position with respect to the position desired by the user is not greater than the maximum distance entered by the user in the query.

At step 630 the results are presented to the user, depending on the hardware and software possibilities of the device 170, 170 'or 170' 'or of the connection of this device to the Internet 180, in the form of indications on a digitized map or in the form of a list (SERP = "Search Engine Results Page") of hyperlinks preferably ordered according to an increasing distance between the position desired by the user and that of the POIs.

Conveniently, each POI can be represented on the digitized map, in known ways, by a suitable interactive icon which, thanks to the invention, can include a hypertext link that refers to a page of the website 100 associated with the POI itself.

Advantageously, the addressing to the page of the website 100 associated with the POI contributes to the increase of the so-called "ranking" of the site itself or to its greater visibility by search engines.

Eventually, the search engine 160 can use the information entered by the user during the search phase (search expression, geographical position of reference and maximum distance) to provide the user with geo-localized advertising messages.

It has thus been shown that the described system achieves the intended aim and objects. In particular, it has been seen how the system thus conceived allows to overcome the limitations of the prior art.

Clearly, numerous modifications are evident and can be readily carried out by the person skilled in the art without departing from the scope of protection of the present invention.

For example, it is obvious to the person skilled in the art that the information contained in the textual pages 240 could be made available, in addition to the search engine 160, also to processing programs suitable for filtering them in an optimized manner. These programs, for example, could be used on existing satellite navigation systems or based on WiFi, telephone or IP triangulations, suitably equipped with suitable means to access the Internet, to allow the user to immediately consult the website associated with the POI searched. and selected.

Therefore, the scope of the claims should not be limited by the illustrations or preferred embodiments illustrated in the description in the form of examples, but rather the claims should encompass all of the patentable novelty features that reside in the present invention, including all features. characteristics that would be treated as equivalent by the person skilled in the art.

Claims (9)

R I V E N D I C A Z I O N I 1. Web search system based on geographic parameters including: - a device of a user (170, 170 ', 170' '), said device comprising means for accessing the Internet network (180); - a plurality of web pages (110, 110 ', 110' ',), each web page (110J being associated with a point of interest and being editable by a manager of said point of interest, each web page (110J being reachable through the Internet network (180) and including an indicator (220, 230) of the geographic coordinates of said point of interest; - a search engine (160) of web pages (110, 110 ', 110' ') accessible from said device (170, 170', 170 '') through the Internet (180), called search engine (160) being suitable for retrieving by means of said indicator (220, 230) said geographical coordinates of said point of interest on the basis of a query coming from the device, said query comprising at least one keyword associated with at least one of said points of interest, a desired position and a maximum distance, said search engine being further adapted to provide said device, on the basis of said query, with information on the points of interest associated with said at least one keyword and having geographic coordinates that are not far from the geographic coordinates of said desired position beyond said maximum distance contained in said query. System according to claim 1, wherein said search engine (160) is adapted to calculate a geographic distance on the basis of said geographic coordinates of said point of interest and the geographic coordinates of said desired position provided by said device (170, 170 ', 170' ') in said query. System according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein said indicator (220, 230) of the geographic coordinates consists of a meta tag (220) whose body (230) includes the geographic coordinates of the point of interest or a hypertext link to a structured text page (240) that can be modified by said person in charge of the point of interest, said structured text page (240) including said geographic coordinates of the point of interest and any additional information on said point of interest. System according to one or more of the preceding claims, wherein said keyword associated with said point of interest comprises a classification, an attribute, a product, an activity or a name of the point of interest. System according to claim 4, further comprising a crawler (120) associated with said search engine (160) and suitable for identifying said metatag (220) and for storing the body of said metatag (230) in a first database (130 ). 6. System according to claim 6, wherein said first database (130) comprises memorized a respective address of each of the web pages (110) equipped with said metatag, said address being respectively related in said first database (130) to said hyperlink to the text page (240). System according to claim 6 or 7, further comprising a bot (150) suitable for fetching at least part of the content of said textual page (240) through said first database (130) and for storing it in a second database (140), so that said second database (140) includes said hypertext link of the textual page (240) related to said geographic coordinates of the point of interest and possibly the web domain of said web page (210). 8. System according to one or more of the preceding claims, in which said geographical coordinates are expressed as latitude and longitude. System according to one or more of the preceding claims wherein said device (170, 170 ', 170' ') comprises positioning means for determining the geographic position of said device, said desired position being the geographic position determined by said positioning means .