Determining Related Query Terms Through Query-Post Associations on Online Social Networks

One or more computer-readable non-transitory storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

• receive, from a client system associated with a first user of an online social network, a search query comprising a character string;
• parse the search query to identify one or more n-grams;
• access a query-term index comprising a plurality of entries corresponding to a plurality of terms extracted from a plurality of prior queries, wherein each entry in the query-term index comprises:
• (1) a query term, (2) one or more related terms extracted from content objects of the online social network matching the query term, and (3) a TF-IDF score for the respective related terms;
• search the query-term index to identify one or more entries corresponding to one or more query terms that match the one or more n-grams of the search query;
• identify a plurality of content objects associated with the online social network that match the search query, each content object comprising one or more terms;
• rank the identified content objects based on the TF-IDF score from each identified entry of the query-term index for each related term that matches a term contained in the respective content object;
• and
• send, to the client system, instructions for presenting one or more search results corresponding to one or more of the identified content objects, respectively, wherein the search results are presented in an order based on the ranking of the corresponding content objects.

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and a non-transitory memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to:
• receive, from a client system associated with a first user of an online social network, a search query comprising a character string;
• parse the search query to identify one or more n-grams;
• access a query-term index comprising a plurality of entries corresponding to a plurality of terms extracted from a plurality of prior queries, wherein each entry in the query-term index comprises:
• (1) a query term, (2) one or more related terms extracted from content objects of the online social network matching the query term, and (3) a TF-IDF score for the respective related terms;
• search the query-term index to identify one or more entries corresponding to one or more query terms that match the one or more n-grams of the search query;
• identify a plurality of content objects associated with the online social network that match the search query, each content object comprising one or more terms;
• rank the identified content objects based on the TF-IDF score from each identified entry of the query-term index for each related term that matches a term contained in the respective content object;
• and
• send, to the client system, instructions for presenting one or more search results corresponding to one or more of the identified content objects, respectively, wherein the search results are presented in an order based on the ranking of the corresponding content objects.