Ranking of search results based on microblog data

An information retrieval system, comprising:

• one or more processing units;
• a microblog URL filter configured for pairing a query with a plurality of microblog resource identifiers, wherein each microblog resource identifier comprises a resource identifier obtained from monitoring a received data stream of microblog posts, thereby generating a plurality of query/microblog resource identifier pairs;
• a first feature generator, at least partially executed by at least one of the one or more processing units, configured for generating a feature set for each query/microblog resource identifier pair, wherein generating the feature set includes generating at least one textual feature by analyzing text of one or more microblog posts that refer to the microblog resource identifier in conjunction with text of the query or generating at least one social networking feature by analyzing one or more characteristics associated with one or more microblog users that issued or received the microblog resource identifier via the microblog;
• a first machine learned ranker configured for processing the feature sets associated with each query/microblog resource identifier pair to produce a ranking for each microblog resource identifier;
• and
• a ranked resource identifier combiner configured for generating one single combined ranked list of resources by combining the rankings for each microblog resource identifier produced by the first machine learned ranker with rankings generated for a plurality of network resource identifiers, wherein each network resource identifier comprises a resource identifier obtained from resources other than the received data stream of microblog posts.

A method for identifying resources in response to a query received from a user, comprising:

• storing resource identifiers extracted from a data stream of microblog posts in a microblog resource identifier index;
• determining whether the query is a recency-sensitive query;
• responsive to determining that the query is a recency-sensitive query, including resources identified by the resource identifiers in the microblog resource identifier index among resources to be searched based on the query;
• identifying resources among the resources to be searched based on the query;
• ranking the identified resources;
• and
• providing one single combined list of the identified resources to the user, wherein the one single combined list is ordered based on the ranking and at least one other ranking generated for a plurality of network resource identifiers, wherein each network resource identifier comprises a resource identifier obtained from resources other than the received data stream of microblog posts.

A method for identifying and ranking resources in response to a query received from a user comprising:

• selecting a first group of resources from among a plurality of resources represented in a first index based on the query, wherein the first index is created by crawling a network of nodes that store resources;
• ranking the first group of resources to generate a first ranked list of resources;
• selecting a second group of resources from among a plurality of resources represented in a second index based on the query, wherein the second index is created by monitoring a received data stream of microblog posts to identify resource identifiers included in the microblog posts, and the second group of resources are different from the first group of resources;
• ranking the second group of resources to generate a second ranked list of resources;
• combining the first and second ranked list of resources to generate one single combined ranked list of resources;
• and
• returning the one single combined ranked list of resources to the user.