Location awareness search assistance system and method

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer-executable instructions that when executed by a processor associated with a computing device perform a method comprising:

• receiving search query input of a user;
• selecting, from a corpus of search queries, a set of search queries using the search query input of the user, at least a portion of a search query selected from the set matching at least a portion of the search query input of the user, each search query in the set having a respective popularity score and a respective geographic location;
• making a determination that the respective geographic location of a first search query from the set is closer to a geographic location of the user than the respective geographic location of a second search query from the set;
• promoting the first search query over the second search query in a ranking of the set of search queries based on respective popularity scores of each search query, the promoting comprising either adjusting the respective popularity score of the first search query upward or adjusting the respective popularity score of the second search query downward;
• selecting a number of the search queries as candidate search query suggestions using the ranking of the set of search queries;
• and
• making the number of search queries available as candidate search query suggestions to the user in response to the search query input of the user.

A system comprising:

• a computing device comprising a processor and a storage medium for tangibly storing thereon program logic for execution by the processor, the stored program logic comprising:
• receiving logic executed by the processor for receiving search query input of a user;
• selecting logic executed by the processor for selecting, from a corpus of search queries, a set of search queries using the search query input of the user, at least a portion of a search query selected from the set matching at least a portion of the search query input of the user, each search query in the set having a respective popularity score and a respective geographic location;
• making logic executed by the processor for making a determination that the respective geographic location of a first search query from the set is closer to a geographic location of the user than the respective geographic location of a second search query from the set;
• promoting logic executed by the processor for promoting the first search query over the second search query in a ranking of the set of search queries based on respective popularity scores of each search query, the promoting comprising either adjusting the respective popularity score of the first search query upward or adjusting the respective popularity score of the second search query downward;
• selecting logic executed by the processor for selecting a number of the search queries as candidate search query suggestions using the ranking of the set of search queries;
• and
• making logic executed by the processor for making the number of search queries available as candidate search query suggestions to the user in response to the search query input of the user.