Method and system for incrementally selecting and providing relevant search engines in response to a user query

摘要

Methods and systems for incrementally selecting and providing relevant search engines in response to a user query. A method of incrementally selecting and providing relevant search engines is based in part on identifying a set of search engines associated with corresponding metadata, receiving a partial search query entered by the user of a device, inferring after each user keypress a set of potential full queries intended by the user, using the potential full queries and the search engine metadata to identify a set of relevant search engines, and for each of these search engines, providing a direct link to launch a relevant query in the search engine. The user input may be either ambiguous, or erroneous, and may be entered using an input-constrained device.

主权项

1. A user-interface method of incrementally providing fully qualified links to a set of relevant search engines implemented by a computer comprising at least one processor, the method comprising:
identifying a set of search engines and associating each search engine of the set with at least one descriptive category to which the subject matter of the corresponding search engine relates; receiving a partial search query entered on a keypad by a user; after at least one keypress received from the user, inferring a set of potential full queries intended by the user, based at least in part on the partial search query; selecting a subset of the identified search engines that are relevant to at least one of the set of inferred full queries based on comparing the inferred full queries with the descriptive categories associated with the search engines; and for each of the selected search engines, providing a fully qualified link designed to directly launch a search for a relevant query using the search engine.