Using Anchor Text to Provide Context

Abstract

A search engine can provide referencing information as context for a particular search result when an excerpt from the search result, comprising at least some similar elements to the user's query, is not generated. Referencing information can include one or more anchor texts having similarity to at least some elements of the user's query, the anchor texts being used by referencing pages to link to the page returned as a search result. User selection of the anchor text can enable the user to visit a referencing page using that anchor text to link to the page returned as a search result, and having a high static rank.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving a search string comprising search terms;   using a computing device, identifying pages relevant to the search string;   for each of the identified pages relevant to the search string:
 using the computing device, obtaining a snippet for the corresponding identified page, the snippet is an excerpt from the corresponding identified page; 
 determining that the snippet does not contain search terms of the search string, obtaining reference information comprising first anchor text of a link to the corresponding identified page from a web page other than the corresponding identified page, the first anchor text is used by the web page other than the corresponding identified page to reference the corresponding identified page; and 
   displaying links to each identified page with the snippet and the obtained reference information for the identified page.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the referencing information further comprises a link to at least one referencing page using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  further comprising selecting the at least one referencing page based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising determining that the first anchor text is in a same language as the search string. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the first anchor text and the search string. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the identified pages. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising selecting the first anchor text from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the search string and a combination of elements present in the at least one of the identified pages and elements present in the first anchor text. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising providing a query-independent snippet for the at least one of the identified pages if the at least one of the identified pages does not comprise elements contained in the search string in a snippetizable format, wherein the query-independent snippet identifies the at least one of the identified pages. 
     
     
         9 . A method of delivering search results comprising:
 displaying links to pages deemed relevant to a search string to a user;   displaying referencing information for at least one of the relevant pages to the user, the referencing information comprising a first anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the relevant pages, wherein the first anchor text is relevant to the search string, wherein the at least one of the relevant pages does not have any content in a textual format; and   displaying a snippet for at least one other of the relevant pages to the user, the snippet is an excerpt from a corresponding relevant page.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the referencing information further comprises a link to at least one referencing page using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the at least one referencing page has a higher static rank than any other known referencing page that uses the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the referencing information further comprises a second anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the relevant pages, wherein the second anchor text is different from the first anchor text, and wherein the second anchor text is relevant to the search string. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the first anchor text is selected from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on similarity between the first anchor text, the search string elements in the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the first anchor text is selected from among multiple anchor text wordings based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the first anchor text is selected from among multiple anchor text wordings, wherein the multiple anchor text wordings were previously stored with the at least one of the relevant pages, and wherein the multiple anchor text wordings were selected based in part on a static rank of one or more referencing pages, the one or more referencing pages using the multiple anchor text wordings to link to the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the first anchor text is selected from among multiple anchor text wordings, wherein the multiple anchor text wordings were previously stored with the at least one of the relevant pages, and wherein the multiple anchor text wordings were selected based in part on a frequency of usage of the multiple anchor text wordings by the one or more referencing pages to link to the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         17 . A display of a personal computing device that displays a search result page for presentation to a user in response to a user-entered query, the search result page comprising:
 links to pages deemed relevant to the user-entered query; and   referencing information for at least one of the relevant pages, the referencing information comprising a first anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the relevant pages, wherein the first anchor text is relevant to the user-entered query, the first anchor text is used by the another page to reference the at least one of the relevant pages.   
     
     
         18 . The display of  claim 17 , wherein the referencing information further comprises a link to at least one referencing page using the first anchor text to link to the at least one of the relevant pages. 
     
     
         19 . The display of  claim 18 , wherein the referencing information further comprises a referencing page snippet for the at least one referencing page, the referencing page snippet comprising at least one element contained in the user-entered query. 
     
     
         20 . The display of  claim 17 , wherein the referencing information further comprises a second anchor text used by another page to link to the at least one of the relevant pages, wherein the second anchor text is different from the first anchor text, and wherein the second anchor text is relevant to the user-entered query.