Methods of augmenting search engines for eCommerce information retrieval

摘要

A system for processing a query request on behalf of a user requesting product information, the system comprising: a computer processor for implementing instructions stored in storage to: receive the query request from the user over a communications network, the query including a query term; access product definitions associated with a master and variant record differentiated product database containing the product information for a particular product; compare the query term to the product definitions to determine whether the query term matches one or more master definitions of the product database or one or more variant definitions of the product database; augment the query request based on results of said matches to generate an augmented query request containing augmented query content; send the augmented query request to a search engine for searching against the product database; receive a query result from the search engine containing the product information in response to the augmented query request, the product information including either a representative image of a master record of the particular product from the product database or one or more representative images corresponding to one or more variant records of the particular product from the product database; and send the product information over the communications network to the user for subsequent presentation on a user interface of the user, the product information formatted as a response to the query request.