Xiao Li 32 Anticipating what Internet users are searching for

摘要

Search engines are pretty good at matching keywords with relevant websites. Xiao Li is helping teach Bing, Microsoft's search engine, to go a step further: figure out the specific task a user is trying to tackle with a query, whether it's buying a digital camera or booking a hotel room, and return the most useful results related to that task. Li created software that can automatically crunch through terabytes of Bing's logs. By building relationships between keywords, the links people click, and the type of information presented on Web pages, the software can pre- dict what a user is trying to accomplish, even if unfamiliar search terms are used.