Patent ID: 7840538

Claim:
A method of discovering the intent of a query comprising executing instructions stored on a memory that cause a processor to: analyze log data stored on the memory a first query submitted by a user to one or more search engines; identify a plurality of related queries that are suggested to the user, where the identified related queries are related to the first query; analyze log data stored on the memory relating to the related queries; construct a first frequency vector for the first query and a related frequency vector for each of the related queries based on the analyzing, the first frequency vector comprising an array of first query frequency score entries corresponding to a set of search engines, and each related frequency vector comprising an array of related query frequency score entries corresponding to the set of search engines; aggregate the related frequency vectors to generate an aggregated related query frequency vector; construct a first normalized frequency vector corresponding to the first query and a second normalized frequency vector corresponding to the aggregated related query frequency vector; and determine a query intent vector comprising an array of entries, each entry corresponding to a search engine of the set of search engines, each entry comprising a combination of weighted entries of the first and second normalized frequency vectors that correspond to the search engine of the set of search engines, wherein the intent of the query is derived from the query intent vector; wherein the instructions stored on the memory, when executed, further cause the processor to: compare each entry of the query intent vector to a threshold; for each entry of the query intent vector that exceeds the threshold, identify the search engine of the set of search engines that corresponds to that entry; and provide search results to the user based on a search of first query on the identified search engines.