Dynamic definitive image service

摘要

Systems and methods for identifying a representative image for any given search query are provided. In response to a search for a query term (or terms), the system accesses an inverted index to identify images associated with that term. The system then receives a ranked list of images. The ranked list includes image identifiers, and once an item in the list is selected the system can use the associated image identifier to retrieve the image from a server. If an editor has overridden the default image for the present search query, then the system returns the image identifier for the overridden image, which can be used to access the image from the server. Thus, the representative image system provides a reliable and universal mechanism for retrieving representative images for any given topic dynamically in real time.

主权项

1. A computer system for providing a dynamic definitive image service, the system comprising:
a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions embodied within the following components; an image data store that stores one or more images or references to images stored in other data stores; an image request component that receives a request during a query for a definitive image that is representative of a topic of the query; an inverted index component that maintains an inverted index that maps one or more query terms to one or more images that are related to those terms; an image ranking component that ranks one or more images identified in the index that potentially match the query terms to sort identified images by a relative likelihood of being a definitive image for the topic of the query; an editorial override component that provides an interface through which a human editor can manually override the definitive image selected by other components of the system to identify an editor-chosen definitive image; an image selection component that selects a definitive image based on images returned from the index, any overridden editor-chosen definitive image, and ranking input from the image ranking component; a thumbnail retrieval component that retrieves an image binary associated with the selected definitive image based on a definitive image identifier provided by the image selection component; and an image response component that responds to the received image request with the retrieved image binary.