URL RESCUE BY EXECUTION OF SEARCH USING INFORMATION EXTRACTED FROM INVALID URL

摘要

A server system is disclosed that is capable of providing responsive content to a user when a request for an invalid URL is received. In a preferred embodiment, the server system implements multiple rescue strategies for attempting to rescue the invalid URL. One such rescue strategy involves repairing the URL by correcting for encoding errors, such as errors introduced by some web clients. Another rescue strategy involves determining that the URL contains an obsolete or outdated item identifier (e.g., product identifier) that renders the URL invalid, and returning information regarding one or more related items to the user. Another rescue strategy involves mining the invalid URL for one or more text strings reflective of the type of content desired, and then using the one or more text strings to execute a keyword search to identify content to provide to the user. The various rescue strategies may be attempted in sequence according to a hierarchy.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented URL rescue process, said URL rescue process comprising:
by a server system that hosts a site:
receiving a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) request from a user device, said URL request specifying a URL that includes a domain name and a character string;detecting that the URL is invalid; andin response to detecting that the URL is invalid, executing a set of one or more URL rescue strategies to attempt to locate site content that is related to the invalid URL, said set of one or more URL rescue strategies including a search term mining based strategy that comprises:
extracting, from the character string of the invalid URL, a set of one or more search terms for executing a search of content of the site, wherein extracting the set of one or more search terms comprises identifying at least one substring of the character string, and comparing the substring to entries in a selection list;executing a search of the site content using the set of one or more search terms, wherein the search is executed using an index of site content; andsending results of the search to the user device in response to the URL request.