Patent Document ID: 9135271
Application ID: 13959597

Base Claim:
1. A method performed by a data processing apparatus, the method comprising: determining excess queries over multiple time periods for two or more given geographic features, where each geographic feature defines a location; comparing the two or more geographic features for similarity based at least in part on the determined excess queries associated with each geographic feature; for a given target geographic feature, determining one or more similar geographic features based on the comparing; and relating electronically the target geographic feature and the one or more similar geographic features as a set of similar geographic features, wherein determining the excess queries over the multiple time periods for the two or more given geographic features includes: generating a geo-query count that represents a total number of times that the search query was received over a specified period; obtaining a corresponding expected query count for the at least one of the search queries by accessing a search query log that includes data specifying search queries corresponding to a particular geographic feature; comparing the geo-query count to the corresponding expected query count for the at least one of the search queries, the corresponding expected query count being a baseline number of times that the query is expected to be received; and in response to determining that the geo-query count of the at least one of the search queries exceeds the corresponding expected query count by at least a threshold amount, classifying the at least one of the search queries as an excess query for the particular geographic feature.

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Claim 6:
6. The method of claim 1 where comparing the two or more geographic features for similarity includes determining a similarity threshold equal to a minimum number of excess queries that must be shared between two geographic features in order to find similarity, and where determining one or more similar geographic features based on the comparing includes determining one or more geographic features that share a number of excess queries that is greater than the similarity threshold for the target geographic feature.