|Publication number||US7653654 B1|
|Application number||US 09/672,304|
|Publication date||26 Jan 2010|
|Priority date||29 Sep 2000|
|Publication number||09672304, 672304, US 7653654 B1, US 7653654B1, US-B1-7653654, US7653654 B1, US7653654B1|
|Original Assignee||International Business Machines Corporation|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (12), Non-Patent Citations (1), Referenced by (34), Classifications (6), Legal Events (3)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and system for periodically searching through files accessible through a network, and in particular, to a method and system for searching through files accessible on a network during scheduled period searches of files based on data from files previously accessed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A network server maintains various files accessible across a network. In the case of the Internet, the files may comprises hypertext mark-up language (HTML) data, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script, image files (e.g., .jpg and .gif), and Channel Definition Format (CDF) files. Collectively, the files linked through HTML files produce a website, wherein the server acts as the website host.
CDFs are small files which include data used by websites' “push” to specify how often and what parts of the site will be “pushed” (e.g., e-mailed) directly to a registered subscriber. Based on the data in the CDF, the website will e-mail various information to the subscriber.
A typical CDF file is an Extended mark-up language (XML) file. A CDF file contains various elements referred to as tags. Some tags include CHANNEL, ITEM, USERSCHEDULE, SCHEDULE, LASTMOD, and LEVEL.
The CHANNEL tag has an HREF attribute that specifies the Universal Resource Locator (URL) on the website that corresponds to that CHANNEL. For example:
The SCHEDULE tag indicates when a channel should be updated. For example:
<SCHEDULE STARTDATE=“1999-09-23” STOPDATE=“1997-11-23”>
indicates that the channel should be updated every day between the start date and the stop date between 2 and 6.
Occasionally, a channel may have a subchannel. A subchannel refers to sub-sites on the website. A subchannel may appear as:
<ITEM HREF=“foobar.htm” LASTMOD=“1999-01-01 TO0101” LEVEL=“2”>
A subchannel references a URL with information about when the page was last modified, and from this URL whether the information is relevant.
A conventional search engine accesses websites on the network. The search engine downloads data from the website and archives selected downloaded data. The archived data is linked to the website from which it was downloaded.
One can use the search engine to search for a particular website containing desirable information by entering a query into the search engine. The search engine will search its archived data and return websites in its archived database which relate to the query.
The dynamic nature of the Internet results in websites being updated regularly. Consequently, data which was on the website when the search engine initially visited the website may no longer be there. Alternatively, the data may be outdated. Further, the website may no longer exist or its URL may have changed. As a result, data archived by the search engine could become invalid. In order for the search engine to be a useful tool, the search engine must periodically update its archived data.
A conventional search engine uses a web crawler (e.g., a “robot”, “spider”, “ant”, etc.) to visit (i.e., access) a server on a network. The spider “crawls” from a homepage (i.e., the first or main webpage) of a website to the various subpages linked from the homepage. As the web crawler visits the various homepages with subpages, data on the pages are selectively archived by the search engine.
The typical crawlers visit web sites at regular intervals, for example, every 30 days. If a web crawler accesses a website which has not been updated since the last time the web crawler visited, the web crawler would presume that the data previously archived is still valid. This may be erroneous.
That is, one disadvantage with current web crawler technology is that the web crawler does not know when a website is scheduled to be updated. Depending on how often a website is updated, the web crawler's archived data could be very outdated by the time the web crawler returns. On the other hand, frequent web crawler visits to websites not frequently updated consumes valuable computer resources.
In view of the foregoing and other problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a method (and system) for determining when and how often a web crawler should return to a website.
Another object is to provide a method (and system) for using the push channel definition available (e.g., a CDF) or other data on the website to determine how often to visit the website and what parts of the website to crawl based upon the information such as SCHEDULE and ITEM, available from the website. For example, this method can take advantage of a website's “last updated,” SCHEDULE, and ITEM information meant for “push” technology to automatically optimize when and how a web crawler crawls a website.
The invention, in a first aspect thereof, is a method (and system) for searching files stored on a network. A first file is accessed on the network and data is downloaded from the first file. The accessing time to access a second file is set based on the data downloaded from the first file. In a further embodiment, the data from the first file is analyzed to determine when a second file is to be scheduled to be updated and the accessing time is assigned based on when the second file is scheduled to be updated. In an alternate, further embodiment, the method includes selecting a second file to download based on data downloaded from the first file.
The invention, in a second aspect thereof, is a method (and system) for searching through files on an network. The method includes accessing a server on a network and downloading data from a first file. An accessing time to re-access the server is set based on data downloaded from the first file. In a further embodiment, the method includes accessing the server using the accessing time and downloading a second file from the server. In an alternate, further embodiment, the method includes selecting a second file to download based on data downloaded from the first file.
The invention, in a third aspect thereof, is a system comprising a machine readable recording medium storing a program for searching through files accessible on a network. The program includes executable instructions for accessing a first file on the network and downloading data from the first file. An accessing time to access a second file is set based on the data downloaded from the first file. In a further embodiment, the program includes accessing the server using the accessing time and downloading a second file from the server. In an alternate, further embodiment, the program includes selecting a second file to download based on data downloaded from the first file.
With the present invention, a website can be “crawled” by using data previously collected from that website. For example, by using data in a CDF, the web crawler can be directed to crawl certain areas of the website at various intervals corresponding to when the website is scheduled to e-mail (i.e., “push”) information to its subscribers. As a result, using the present invention, it is likely that a web crawler will encounter updated information on the website. Consequently, the present invention provides for a more efficient web crawling of a website by crawling the site when and where it is likely the information contained therein is updated.
The foregoing, and other objects, aspects, and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:
Data is downloaded from the first file (Step 120). This data is then analyzed (Step 130). If the first file is a CDF, analysis includes identifying various elements such as CHANNEL, SCHEDULE, and ITEM (Step 130). Next, values corresponding to the aforementioned elements are extracted from the downloaded data (Step 130).
An access time to access a second file is set using the SCHEDULE value (Step 140). As such, the access time will be set to correspond to when the web site is scheduled to be “pushed.” A second file is selected to be downloaded based on the ITEM value (Step 150). In one embodiment, the second file selected is the same as the first file (Step 150).
Method 100 can be implemented by a web crawler. An example of such an implementation may occur as follows. A web crawler is programmed to visit various websites which may contain CDFs. The web crawler is adapted to use the CDF information as a site map to determine which sub-websites to visit.
The first time the web crawler visits the website, the web crawler downloads the CDF file and keeps the site in a database, storing the CHANNEL and SCHEDULE information. Next, the web crawler uses the SCHEDULE information in the CHANNEL tag to decide when to visit the website next.
In one embodiment, the next visit is normalized by the web crawler's own parameters as to when to crawl a site. For instance, if a web crawler has its own schedule and decides to crawl less frequently than the SCHEDULE value, it uses its own schedule than the web site's SCHEDULE value.
When a web crawler visits a website on the web crawler's schedule, the web crawler may selectively visit sub-sites (e.g. items or subchannels) by using the LASTMOD and ITEM tags information in the CDF file to selectively crawl only those subchannels that have been or scheduled to be updated. It also uses the LEVEL attribute in any subchannel to see how deep to crawl.
An advantage of the present method is that using the SCHEDULE and ITEMS values provides for access only when a website and the website's associated files are scheduled to be updated. Consequently, a web crawler, utilizing this method, will access a website when the website is likely to have been updated, based on the CDF data.
Further, the method does not require any work by the website builder (e.g., web master) to accommodate the web crawler. The web crawler automatically uses the “push” information already available.
Referring now to
In addition to the hardware/software environment described above, a different aspect of the invention includes a computer-implemented method for performing the above method. As an example, this method may be implemented in the particular environment discussed above.
Such a method may be implemented, for example, by operating the CPU 211 (
Thus, this aspect of the present invention is directed to a programmed product, comprising signal-bearing media tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital data processor incorporating the CPU 211 and hardware above, to perform the method of the invention.
This signal-bearing media may include, for example, a RAM contained within the CPU 211, as represented by the fast-access storage for example. Alternatively, the instructions may be contained in another signal-bearing media, such as a magnetic data storage diskette 300 (
Whether contained in the diskette 300, the computer/CPU 211, or elsewhere, the instructions may be stored on a variety of machine-readable data storage media, such as DASD storage (e.g., a conventional “hard drive” or a RAID array), magnetic tape, electronic read-only memory (e.g., ROM, EPROM, or EEPROM), an optical storage device (e.g. CD-ROM, WORM, DVD, digital optical tape, etc.), paper “punch” cards, or other suitable signal-bearing media including transmission media such as digital and analog and communication links and wireless. In an illustrative embodiment of the invention, the machine-readable instructions may comprise software object code, compiled from a language such as “C”, etc.
There are several advantages to the present invention. A major advantage is the invention's ability to “screen” websites. As the number of pages on the web grows (conceivably to well beyond 1 billion), it is impossible for search engines to keep up to date with all of these pages. The present invention provides a method and system which allows search engines to visit the pages that are the most recently updated, and to not visit those web pages that have not been updated.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it is not limited to CDF files only. It can work with any sitemap structure that a website provides with “change dates.” For instance, Netscape uses a different format based on Resource Description Framework (RDF).
While the invention has been described in terms of preferred embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
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|6 Sep 2013||REMI||Maintenance fee reminder mailed|
|26 Dec 2013||SULP||Surcharge for late payment|
|26 Dec 2013||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4