Search engine with geographical verification processing

Abstract

A search operation provides geographically restricted and verified information to a user. A first step obtains high relevance search results by searching only in a specific region defined for a search operation. A second step improves the quality of the search results by performing contact address correlation. If the search server finds a reliable reference address in the search results, then these search results can be presented to the user, whereby search results that are not correlating well with legitimate and registered addresses for the site are removed from the search result lists. The region-restricted search does searching in a selected geographical region and only presents legitimate web pages or search results to a user. Thus, the region-restricted search operation improve quality and may minimize search time and reduce a huge volume of non-valued Internet traffic, which is likely to impair the overall performance and experience on the Internet.

1 . A visual map based search engine system that facilitates searching for content on an Internet, the visual map based search engine system comprising;
 a communication interface through which a search string and search region information are received from a client device, the search string originating from input of a user via the client device and the search region information originating from a selection made by the user via the client device;   at least one database that contains text data, geographical location related data, and confidence level data, the text data corresponding to actual text extracted from a plurality of web sites during a web crawling process, the confidence level data representing a confidence level associated with the geographical location related data, and the confidence level data and the geographical location related data being associated with the plurality of web sites;   a processing infrastructure that responds to the search string and the search region information to extract search results front the at least one database with consideration given to the confidence level data; and   delivering the search results via the communication interface to support a visual map based presentation on the client device.   
     
     
         2 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 1 , wherein the processing infrastructure analyzes at least a portion of the geographical location related data to generate the confidence level data in an effort to identify those of the plurality of web sites associated with questionable geographical location related data. 
     
     
         3 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the geographical location related data originates within the text data. 
     
     
         4 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the geographical location related data originates from at least some of the plurality of web sites. 
     
     
         5 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the geographical location related data was at least originally provided by an independent database. 
     
     
         6 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 5 , wherein the independent database comprises a domain related database. 
     
     
         7 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 5 , wherein the independent database comprises a domain registration database. 
     
     
         8 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 1 , wherein at least a portion of the geographical location related data was at least originally provided by a formal online geographical location registration site. 
     
     
         9 . The visual map based search engine system of  claim 1 , wherein the geographical location related data comprising both first content from a formal online geographical location registration database and second content identified through an analysis relating to the plurality of web sites. 
     
     
         10 . A search engine system that facilitates searching for content on an Internet, the search engine system comprising:
 a communication interface through which search strings and search region selections are received from a plurality of client devices;   at least one database that contains text data and associated geographical location related data, the text data corresponding to actual text extracted from a plurality of web sites during a web crawling process, the associated geographical location related data being gathered from a plurality of sources;   a processing infrastructure that responds to a first of the search strings from a first of the plurality of client devices by extracting first search results for the first of the plurality of client devices by comparing the first of the search strings to the text data and   the processing infrastructure that responds to a second of the search strings and a first of the search region selections from a second of the plurality of client devices by extracting second search results for the second of the plurality of client devices by (i) comparing the second of the search strings to the text data (ii) comparing the first of the search region selections with the associated geographical location related data, and (iii) considering a likelihood that at least one of the plurality of web sites being an intentionally illegitimate website   
     
     
         11 . The search engine system of  claim 10 , wherein the processing infrastructure delivers the second search results via the communication interface to support a visual map based presentation on the second of the plurality of client devices. 
     
     
         12 . The search engine system of  claim 10 , wherein the search region selections are selected via a map based user interface provided by at least some of the plurality of client devices. 
     
     
         13 . The search engine system of  claim 10 , wherein the processing infrastructure at least one of the plurality of sources comprises the text data. 
     
     
         14 . The search engine system of  claim 13 , wherein the processing infrastructure at least one of the plurality of sources comprises a formal registration database, 
     
     
         15 . The search engine system of  claim 10 , wherein the likelihood is based on a comparison process related to the associated geographical location related data from at least two of the plurality of sources. 
     
     
         16 . A search engine system that facilitates searching for content on an Internet, the search engine system comprising:
 a communication interface through which a search string and geographic filter related data are received from a first client device;   at least one database that contains web page contents data and associated web page geographical location related data, the web page contents data and the associated web page geographical location related data corresponding to a plurality of web sites identified during a web crawling process;   a processing infrastructure that considers at least one geographical location related indication in an attempt to identify likely illegitimate websites within the plurality of web sites; and   the processing infrastructure produces search results by (i) comparing the search string to the web page contents data, and (ii) comparing the geographic filter related data with the associated geographical location related data.   
     
     
         17 . The search engine system of  claim 16 , wherein the processing infrastructure delivers the search results via the communication interface to support a visual map based presentation on first client device. 
     
     
         18 . The search engine system of  claim 16 , wherein the geographic filter related data is established via a map based user interface provided by the first client device. 
     
     
         19 . The search engine system of  claim 16 , wherein at least some of the likely illegitimate web sites are penalized in relation to the search results. 
     
     
         20 . The search engine system of  claim 19 , wherein the penalty comprises blocking a first of the plurality of web sites from the search results, 
     
     
         21 . The search engine system of  claim 16 , wherein the attempt to identify comprises comparing geographical data from a plurality of sources. 
     
     
         22 . The search engine system of  claim 21 , wherein one of the plurality of sources comprises the web page contents data. 
     
     
         23 . The search engine system of  claim 21 , wherein one of the plurality of sources comprises a formal registration database. 
     
     
         24 . A method performed by a search engine system to facilitate searching for content on an Internet, the method comprising:
 crawling to gather web page contents from a plurality of web pages hosted on the Internet;   storing in at least one database first web page contents data and associated geographical location data corresponding to a first of the plurality of web pages;   considering at least one legitimacy factor relating to the associated geographical location data:   receiving a search string and geographic filter related data from a user device; and   producing search results that account for the consideration.   
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24 , further comprising delivering the search results to support a visual map based presentation on the user device. 
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the search results do not identify the first of the plurality of web pages. 
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the first of the plurality of web pages is blocked from the search results. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 24 , wherein the considering comprises comparing geographical data from a plurality of sources. 
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 28 , wherein one of the plurality of sources comprises the first web page contents data. 
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 28 , wherein one of the plurality of sources comprises a formal registration database.