Patent Document ID: 8977605
Application ID: 11511570

Base Claim:
1. A method for processing structured search queries received at an internet search site from a business partner site operated by a business partner of an operator of the internet search site, the method comprising: receiving at the internet search site a structured search query from the business partner site, the structured search query containing an original user's search intent, the business partner site including a hierarchical database, the hierarchical database being organized as a plurality of categories and subcategories within respective categories, the business partner site having an agreement with the internet search site to provide search queries and receive search results from the internet search site, the structured search query being constructed as a breadcrumb search including a plurality of breadcrumbs, each respective breadcrumb within the structured search query having a text string reflecting a respective category or subcategory of the hierarchical database to define contextual path information identifying a location in the directory database; parsing the structured search query based on a grammar published for business partners to construct the structured search query; extracting individual breadcrumbs from the structured search query that were used to build the structured search query, including decoding of position and meaning of each respective breadcrumb in the structured search query; creating sub-phrases from canonical forms of the extracted individual breadcrumbs and from combinations of the extracted individual breadcrumbs; forming match tokens from sub-phrases; matching listings stored in a search listing database of the internet search site with the formed match tokens; forming a search result list with the matched listings; and ranking elements of the search result list according to strength of match tokens to the original user search intent.

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Claim 7:
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising: defining a grammar for constructing and referring breadcrumb search strings from the extracted individual breadcrumbs.