Quicklink selection for navigational query results

Quicklinks for a website are navigational shortcuts displayed below the website homepage on a search results page, and that let the users directly jump to selected points inside the website. Since the real-estate on a search results page is constrained and valuable, picking the best set of quicklinks to maximize the benefits for a majority of the users becomes an important problem for search engines. Using user browsing trails obtained from browser toolbars, and a simple probabilistic model, we formulate the quicklink selection problem as a combinatorial optimizaton problem. We first demonstrate the hardness of the objective, and then propose an algorithm that is provably within a factor of (1-1/e) of the optimal. We also propose a different algorithm that works on trees and that can find the optimal solution; unlike the previous algorithm, this algorithm can incorporate natural constraints on the set of chosen quicklinks. The efficacy of our methods is demonstrated via empirical resu...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: WWW
• Authors: Deepayan Chakrabarti, Ravi Kumar, Kunal Punera
• Keywords: Combinatorial Optimizaton Problem, Internet Technology, Real-world Search Engine, User Browsing Trails, WWW 2009