How Search Queries Trigger Structured Information Cards?

A recently granted patent describes how Google may use queries to trigger structured information cards and how those queries can evolve over time.

How might queries that trigger structured information cards change over time?

When does a search engine decide that it should show a knowledge panel in response to a query?

What words in a query will trigger that knowledge panel?

A knowledge panel is sometimes referred to as a structured information card by Google.

Other structured information cards contain information about things such as hotel reservations, flight arrivals, dinner reservations, movie tickets, and others.

If you’ve worked with knowledge panels, you’ve learned that different searches will trigger those to appear.

Often those include a mention of an entity, such as a business name, or a certain thing.

And queries that trigger structured information cards can change over time according to a recently granted patent.

Search queries can be used to return resources – such as web pages, images, text documents, electronic mail documents, multimedia content, etc. – relevant to a searcher’s needs and to present information about those resources in a way that is most useful to the searcher.

Sometimes the best result may be a structured information card.

A computer system may:

* Receive a search query.
* Process the search query.
* Identify results that are relevant to the search query.
* Return a set of search results in response to a searcher submitted query.

The patent this post is about is from the start of November 2020, and it tells us about a card trigger-term identification unit that could identify additional trigger-terms that show a structured information card.

The card trigger-term identification unit allows the grammar of one or more structured information cards to be tuned, over time, by evaluating candidate terms in queries for potential inclusion in the grammar of a structured information card.

For example, assume the grammar for a “Movie” structured information card includes terms such as “movie time,” “movie ticket confirmation,” and “ticket confirmation number.”

The card trigger-term identification unit may:

* Analyze terms associated with the grammar of the “Movie” structured information card and one or candidate queries.

* Identify an additional trigger-term for the “Movie” structured information card such as the trigger-term “movie ticket.”

Accordingly, follow-up queries that are received may include terms such as “movie time”, “movie ticket,” or both and will trigger the display of a “Movie” structured information card in response to such queries.

The subject matter of this patent may be used to identify additional trigger-terms that will show structured information cards.

The process behind the patent may include accessing data associated with a template for presenting structured information in response to a search query, wherein the accessed data references:

1) One or more label terms that, when included in the search query, triggers a structured information card to be presented according to the template.

2) For each of the one or more label terms, a value, obtaining a candidate label term that is not already associated with the template for presenting the structured information.

For each of the one or more label terms:

* Identifying entities that are associated with the label term.

* Identifying entities that are associated with the candidate label term.

For each of the entities associated with a candidate label term, a query may cause an association, with a candidate label term:

* One or more of the label terms that are associated with the entity.

* For each of the one or more of the label terms that are associated with the entity, the value associated with the label term, and after receiving a query that includes the candidate label term.

* Using the one or more values associated with the candidate label term to determine whether to trigger the structured information to be presented according to the template.

These and other versions may optionally include one or more of the following features:

* The label terms may correspond to parameters of a search query.

* The value may be indicative of the number of times the query has been used to trigger the appearance of the structured information card.

* Obtaining a candidate label term that is not already associated with the template for presenting the structured information card may involve identifying query terms from a query log.

* Using the one or more values associated with the candidate label term to determine whether to trigger the structured information to be presented according to the template may include aggregating the one or more values that are associated with the candidate label term.

* Determining whether the aggregated value satisfies a predetermined threshold, and in response to determining that the aggregated value satisfies the predetermined threshold.

* Determining that the search query including the candidate label term will trigger the presentation of the structured information.

What are Triggering Structured Information Cards?

Using the values associated with a candidate label term to trigger a structured information card to be presented according to the template may involve:

* Aggregating the one or more values that are associated with the candidate label term.

* Determining whether the aggregated value satisfies a predetermined threshold.

* In response to determining that the aggregated value exceeds the predetermined threshold, determining that the search query including the candidate label term will not trigger the presentation of the structured information.

Read more here.