Methods, systems and techniques for ranking personalized and generic search query suggestions

A system having at least one processor, storage, and a communication platform, to provide query suggestions, the system comprising:

• a request processing unit implemented using the at least one processor and configured to:
• receive, in a person session involving a person interacting with a search application, a portion of a search query from a person;
• a suggestion search unit implemented using the at least one processor and configured to:
• send the portion of the search query to a non-personalized database, to obtain a set of non-personalized query suggestions based on the portion of the search query without considering a previous query within the person session,
• look up, completely in parallel to obtaining the set of non-personalized query suggestions, based on the portion of the search query, a personalized cache associated with a person corpus for a set of personalized query suggestions based on the portion of the search query, wherein the person corpus is derived based on a person-centric space including data cross linked from a private space associated with the person, a semi-private space, and a public space based on cross-linking keys identified from the private space,
• in response to a failure of obtaining the set of personalized query suggestions from the personalized cache, send, asynchronously with the looking up, a request to the person corpus for personalized data to be written into the personalized cache, and
• in response to receipt of an additional portion of the search query from the person, obtain the set of personalized query suggestions from the personalized cache;
• and
• a blended query suggestion generation module implemented using the at least one processor and configured to:
• rank, based on a usage of a first application associated with the person corpus, query suggestions from the first set of personalized query suggestions and the second set of non-personalized query suggestions to generate a ranked list of query suggestions, wherein a query suggestion is ranked higher if a first frequency that the person accesses the first application exceeds a threshold within a period of time and the first frequency is higher than a second frequency that the person accesses a second application associated with the person corpus, and
• provide at least some of the ranked query suggestions to the person, so as to facilitate the person to submit a complete search query.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having information recorded thereon for providing query suggestions, wherein the information, when read by a machine, causes the machine to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, in a person session involving a person interacting with a search application, a portion of a search query from a person;
• sending the portion of the search query to a non-personalized database, to obtain a set of non-personalized query suggestions based on the portion of the search query without considering a previous query within the person session;
• looking up, completely in parallel to obtaining the set of non-personalized query suggestions, based on the portion of the search query, a personalized cache associated with a person corpus for a set of personalized query suggestions based on the portion of the search query, wherein the person corpus is derived based on a person-centric space including data cross linked from a private space associated with the person, a semi-private space, and a public space based on cross-linking keys identified from the private space;
• in response to a failure of obtaining the set of personalized query suggestions from the personalized cache, sending, asynchronously with the looking up, a request to the person corpus for personalized data to be written into the personalized cache;
• in response to receipt of an additional portion of the search query from the person, obtaining the set of personalized query suggestions from the personalized cache;
• ranking, based on a usage of a first application associated with the person corpus, query suggestions from the first set of personalized query suggestions and the second set of non-personalized query suggestions to generate a ranked list of query suggestions, wherein a query suggestion is ranked higher if a first frequency that the person accesses the first application exceeds a threshold within a period of time and the first frequency is higher than a second frequency that the person accesses a second application associated with the person corpus;
• and
• presenting at least some of the ranked query suggestions to the person, so as to facilitate the person to submit a complete search query.