Patent Application
20060095345
Not applicable.
Not applicable.
The invention relates to the field of electronic commerce, and more particularly to a system and method for presenting a product or service catalog to a user over a network connection, and permitting the user to either search or navigate to items of interest using an integrated interface accessing a unified catalog index and related tools.
The proliferation of online retail and other vendor sites has led to a desire to enhance the user's shopping or other commercial experience. The number and type of goods and services marketed on the Internet has burgeoned to a point that some vendors may present users with not just a few product types and selections, but dozens, hundreds, thousands or more of given product or service categories. For example, vendors who market automobile parts may offer hundreds or thousands of common parts or services, such as air filters, spark plugs or a host of other parts or products, each of which may be differentiated for various manufacturers, years and models of vehicles. Computer hardware or software vendors, clothing merchandisers, book or other publishing retailers and others may similarly stock or offer a large quantity and variety of goods, products or services. Presenting those wide ranges of product choices can become a cumbersome consumer experience on an Internet Web site that does not permit a user to select various product or service categories, or to enter search terms to locate items of interest.
While some Internet retailers, manufacturer and others sites may present a user with a search dialog, and may also present the user with a product tree, hierarchy or “taxonomy” which permits a user to keep drilling into further product details, categories or other breakdowns, those search and browse facilities are typically not unified. That is, a user may be able to navigate up and down a list of parts for a given make and model of car, the user may not be able to refine the product categories or parts results with an impromptu search at a given level. Conversely, a user who has performed a search to find parts for a 2000 Mercedes Benz sedan may not be able to extend those results by navigating to related parts, in browsing fashion.
The disjointed quality of product search and browse may be due in part to the fact that on many conventional electronic commerce platforms, the source data used to supply product information for searching and the source data used to supply information for browsing may not be or formatted as the same data. That is, product or service data which may be used to permit users to perform free searches may typically be encoded in a structured database format, such as structured query language (SQL) or other relational or other scheme. On the other hand, the descriptive information used to portray products or services on a browsable Web site may be stored or encoded in non-database format, such as in hyper text markup language (HTML), extensible markup language (XML) or other code or format. Conducting a search on that type of descriptive informational, advertising or other material may therefore be difficult or impossible.
The user may therefore have to stop a navigation or browsing session or accumulated results, in order to back out and access a search dialog or other search tool when more particular results are desired. Users who do so may however not be searching or accessing the same or consistent descriptive content, so that, for instance, parts or products found by navigation may not be located when a search is performed, or vice versa. Other problems in electronic commerce platforms exist.
The invention overcoming these and other problems in the art relates in one regard to a system and method for an online catalog system having an integrated search and browse capability, in which product descriptors and other information is processed and stored to a searchable catalog index. In embodiments, product specifications, descriptions, images, pricing and other data may be extracted from Web pages or other sources, and stored to the catalog index in structured or hierarchical form. With Web or other descriptors stored to structured form, a user may navigate an online catalog or other e-commerce site, and initiate search or browsing activity accessing that index. Upon locating a product or service of interest, the user may extend or refine their search or browsing activity with, for example, additional search terms. According to embodiments of the invention in one regard, the user may move freely and seamlessly in and out of search activity and browsing modes. The user may thus transparently iterate or refine their product results, without a need to start navigating or searching over again each time a change from keyword searching to site-category browsing, or vice versa, is made.
According to embodiments of the invention in one regard, the Web host 104 may communicate with a catalog index 106 storing an index of the products, goods, services, information or other content advertised or available for sale, order, rental, lease or other commercial transaction on that site. However, in contrast to conventional e-commerce Web platforms in which, for example, book titles or clothing selections may be stored and presented in an unstructured or unsearchable form in a hyper text markup language (HTML) or other format, according to embodiments of the invention the catalog index 106 may be constructed and generated in a structured or hierarchical fashion, to permit a user of client 102 or other device to either meaningfully navigate or browse the available content of Web host 104, in a unified fashion and without having to switch back and forth between separate browsing tools and searching tools.
More specifically, content stored in catalog index 106 may according to embodiments of the invention be generated or maintained by an indexing engine 108 which in turn communicates with a product database 110, which database may act as a source of descriptive, attribute, image or other information which may be abstracted to populate catalog index 106. That is, product database 110 may contain or store descriptions of product, goods, services, media content or other information in unstructured HTML, extensible markup language (XML) or other structured or unstructured format. That content may include, for example, advertisements, images or specifications for commercial goods or services such as books, subscriptions, clothing, medical or health services, computer hardware or software or other products, goods, services, content or information. That data may be supplied, for example, by the manufacturers, vendors or advertisers of those goods, services, content or information, to promote the marketing of that commercial material or information. That data may be supplied from diverse sources, and may in embodiments not necessarily be furnished or stored in a structured, relational or searchable format.
However, according to embodiments of the invention indexing engine 108 may access and analyze that source information and extract product, service, content or information details or attributes, and store them to indexing catalog index 106, in a structured or relational data store which then may be searched or navigated, in an integrated fashion. Thus, and as for example illustrated in
Those tables or other objects may include, as illustrated, a set of attribute classes 112, a set of attribute values 112, a set of keywords 124, a set of product keywords 126 and a set of product attribute values 128. In embodiments as shown, the set of attribute classes 112 may store a set of entries or objects indicating product, service, content or information attributes such as an illustrative product category of “digital camera”, which may be descend to further categories such as “mega-pixels”, “optical zoom” and others, each of which may entail further attributes, labels or other identifiers. For instance “optical zoom” may resolve into categories or attributes of “2-4×zoom”, “4-8×zoom”, “electronically enhanced zoom” or others.
According to embodiments of the invention in a corresponding regard, the catalog index 106 may similarly store specific values for attributes in a set of attribute values 112, so that, for example, a digital camera or other product identified by a given pixel resolution of 3.2 megapixels may resolve to further attributes such as memory type, battery life, frequency of search term inquiries or other measures, or other attributes or characteristics enumerated in the set of attribute values 114. Likewise, the catalog index may store a set of product keywords 126 which may record product descriptors such as “product ID”, “keyword”, “weight”, “price”, “model” or others, which may apply to one or more sets of catalogued products. The catalog index 106 may similarly store a set of product attribute values 128 which may record manufacturer model number, product ID, pixel resolution, zoom or other values for catalogued goods, products, services, content or information. Thus the schema used to categorize or organize the set of product, service, content or information attributes in set of attribute classes 112 may be separated from the specific values of those entries for specific manufacturers, products, services, content or information, but logically linked by key fields or other links or terms, such as product ID or others. However, a user manipulating user interface 116 to view the content of Web host 104 may consequently be able to either navigate or search all available categories or levels for desired products, services or content based on an interrogation of catalog index 106, in seamless fashion.
Thus, for example and as illustrated in
In embodiments, the set of attribute classes 112, set of attribute values 112 or other content of catalog index 106 may be structured to enhance search speed or other performance characteristics, for example by placing frequently-searched key words in a cache, or other efficient data store. Semantic or query processing may likewise enhance attributes, key words or phrases or other data stored in catalog index 106, for instance to pre-join common attributes or terms into frequently used criteria, to reduce pathways to common terms, or supply other performance enhancements.
When a set of results 122 is generated and delivered, the user may perform further or additional refinements to attributes, keywords or perform other iterations, or begin a new search, enter further criteria, or browse further selections. In general, however, the user may freely and continuously navigate or search on the content of catalog index 106 via Web host 104, without having to stop to re-enter search terms, re-navigate to different points in the product, service, content or information taxonomy, or to repeatedly access different tools for various searching functions and browsing functions. The quality of user experience and efficiency of search operations may therefore be enhanced.
Overall integrated search and browse processing in an online catalog or other environment is illustrated in
In step 408, the user may browse or search to a position within the Web or other site taxonomy, for example to a product or service category such as “non-fiction paperback books” within an electronic bookstore, or “digital video cameras” in an online electronics catalog. In step 410, a Web host 104, such as a Web site server or other host, may match the user's search terms or navigated product or service position to the catalog index 106. In step 412, any one or more matching products or services, classes or categories of products or services, taxonomy positions or other results may be generated and presented to the user, for example by updating the user interface 116 to show matching books, video cameras, or other goods, products or services within refreshed windows or panes, along with position identifiers or highlights of attributes. In step 414, the Web host 104 may receive search refinements or further product or service selections from the user, for example to search or browse to books published in the year “2004”, or based on other or extended criteria.
In step 416, an updated report or results may be generated against the catalog index 106, and for example presented to the user via user interface 116. In step 418, the Web host 104 may received further or iterated refinements to search terms or other search or taxonomy selections, as appropriate from the user. In embodiments the user may repeatedly alter or refine those positions within the taxonomy or search terms inputted to the search tool 118. In step 420, any ensuing transaction processing, such as execution of an online purchase order, may be executed as appropriate. For instance a selected product or service may be identified, checked into a shopping card and paid for via an electronic charge to a credit card, or other transaction processing may take place. In step 422, processing may return to a prior processing point, jump to a further processing point, repeat or end.
The foregoing description of the invention is illustrative, and modifications in configuration and implementation will occur to persons skilled in the art. For instance, while the invention has generally been described in terms of a user accessing a public Web site, in embodiments the user may access other types of sites via other networks or connections, such as intranets or other public, private or other networks.
Similarly, while the invention has in embodiments been described as operating on a single catalog index 106, in embodiments the search index may be distributed across multiple databases, data stores or servers. The source product database 110 may similarly be implemented using multiple databases, data stores or servers. Other hardware, software or other resources described as singular may in embodiments be distributed, and similarly in embodiments resources described as distributed may be combined. The scope of the invention is accordingly intended to be limited only by the following claims.
