US Patent 7949672 Identifying regional sensitive queries in web search

A system for determining the intent of query that includes a search engine that receives a first search query, a query/click log module configured to store log data associated with the first search query; and a computational module that generates metric values associated with the first search query based on the log data and that determines that the first search query is one of a regional specific query or a global query based on the metric values, where the metric values reflect a likelihood of local intent of the first search query, and where the search engine provides search results selected in part based on the metric values.