US Patent 10019484 Third party search applications for a search system

Systems and methods offer a search system with third-party provided search applications that are triggered in response to specified queries and run at the search system. For example, a method may include determining that a query triggers a third party search application hosted at the search system, extracting a parameter from the query based on a query template, executing the third party search application with the parameter in a sandboxed manner at the search system to generate a third-party formatted answer for the query, and providing the third-party formatted answer as a search result for the query. The third party may provide the query template, parameter attributes, and the third party formatted answer. The third party search application may be stored at the search system and include the query template, a data store, the parameter attributes, and instructions for accessing the data store using the parameter.