Patent ID: 7689585

Claim:
A computer-implemented method performed by a computing device that has one or more processors to execute instructions, the method comprising: identifying relationships between multi-type data objects that include at least one object of a first type and at least one object of a second type different from the first type, the relationships being at least one of intra-layer relationships or inter-layer relationships among the multi-type data objects; iteratively clustering the multi-type data objects based on the relationships to generate reinforced clusters; generating a list of suggested search terms associated with a bid term using the reinforced clusters, the search terms generated in response to receiving the bid term from a user; transmitting, via a network interface, the list of suggested search terms to a user; and mutually reinforcing an importance of individual ones of the multi-type data objects within an object type and between different object types based on the following: { a ⁡ ( X ) = β ⁢ ⁢ L X T ⁢ h ⁡ ( X ) + ( 1 - β ) ⁢ L XY ⁢ i ⁡ ( Y ) h ⁡ ( X ) = β ⁢ ⁢ L X ⁢ a ⁡ ( X ) + ( 1 - β ) ⁢ L XY ⁢ i ⁡ ( Y ) i ⁡ ( X ) = a ⁡ ( X ) + h ⁡ ( X ) a ⁡ ( Y ) = γ ⁢ ⁢ L Y T ⁢ h ⁡ ( Y ) + ( 1 - γ ) ⁢ L YX ⁢ i ⁡ ( X ) h ⁡ ( Y ) = γ ⁢ ⁢ L Y ⁢ a ⁡ ( Y ) + ( 1 - γ ) ⁢ L YX ⁢ i ⁡ ( X ) i ⁡ ( Y ) = a ⁡ ( Y ) + h ⁡ ( Y ) wherein X={x 1 , x 2 , . . . x m } and Y={y 1 , y 2 , . . . y n } represent respective object sets of heterogeneous object type with relationships R X , R Y , R XY and R YX if directionality is considered L X and L Y represent adjacent matrixes of links identifying relationships within set X and Y respectively, L XY and L YX represent adjacent matrixes of links identifying relationships from objects in X to objects in Y, a(X) and h(X) are an authority score and a hub score of nodes within X respectively, a(Y) and h(Y) respectively represent authority scores and hub scores of nodes in Y, i(X) and i(Y) respectively represent an importance of the nodes in X and Y, and β and γ are weight parameters to adjust influence of links derived from different relationships.