Personalization of Web Search Results Using Term, Category, and Link-Based User Profiles

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• accessing a user profile for a user and a group profile for the user;
• receiving a search query from the user;
• identifying a set of generic search result documents that match the search query;
• assigning a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of generic search result documents;
• assigning a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document, the user profile, and the group profile;
• ranking the subset of search result documents in accordance with their respective personalized scores;
• providing, to a client system associated with the user, information identifying a plurality of documents in the ranked subset of search result documents;
• and
• updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the plurality of documents.

A computer system, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• memory;
• and
• one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including:
• instructions for accessing a user profile for a user and a group profile for the user;
• instructions for receiving a search query from the user;
• instructions for identifying a set of generic search result documents that match the search query;
• instructions for assigning a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of generic search result documents;
• instructions for assigning a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document, the user profile, and the group profile;
• instructions for ranking the subset of search result documents in accordance with their respective personalized scores;
• instructions for providing, to a client system associated with the user, information identifying a plurality of documents in the ranked subset of search result documents;
• and
• instructions for updating the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the plurality of documents.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more computer programs comprising instructions, which when executed by a computer system, cause the computer system to:

• access a user profile for a user and a group profile for the user;
• receive a search query from the user;
• identify a set of generic search result documents that match the search query;
• assign a generic score to each document of at least a subset of the set of generic search result documents;
• assign a personalized score to each document of the subset of search result documents in accordance with the generic score assigned to the document, the user profile, and the group profile;
• rank the subset of search result documents in accordance with their respective personalized scores;
• provide, to a client system associated with the user, information identifying a plurality of documents in the ranked subset of search result documents;
• and
• update the user profile based on a document selected by the user from the plurality of documents.