Processing social search results

A method comprising:

• ranking a plurality of search results that are retrieved in response to a search query based on a relevance of each of the plurality of search results with respect to the search query to provide a plurality of rankings of the plurality of respective search results, a relatively greater ranking corresponding to a relatively greater relevance with respect to the search query, a relatively lower ranking corresponding to a relatively lower relevance with respect to the search query;
• determining an initial subset of the plurality of search results, each search result in the initial subset having a ranking that exceeds a ranking threshold;
• determining that the initial subset includes a plurality of social search results, each social search result indicating information from a user profile on a social networking domain, the plurality of social search results including at least a first subset and a second subset, the first subset including at least one first social search result having at least one respective first ranking of the plurality of rankings, the second subset including at least one second social search result having at least one respective second ranking of the plurality of rankings;
• determining that the at least one first ranking and the at least one second ranking are not consecutive;
• and
• increasing the at least one second ranking to be consecutive with the at least one first ranking in response to determining that the at least one first ranking and the at least one second ranking are not consecutive.

A system comprising:

• subset determination logic that includes electrical circuitry and is configured to determine an initial subset of a plurality of search results that are retrieved based on a search query, each search result in the initial subset having a relevance with regard to the search query that exceeds a relevance threshold;
• social determination logic configured to determine whether the initial subset includes one or more first social search results, each first social search result indicating information from a user profile on a social networking domain;
• selection logic configured to select one or more second social search results from the plurality of search results based on each of the one or more second social search results indicating information from a user profile on a social networking domain in response to a determination that the initial subset includes the one or more first social search results, each second social search result having a relevance with regard to the search query that does not exceed the relevance threshold;
• combination logic configured to combine a designated subset of the one or more second social search results and at least a portion of the initial subset that includes the one or more first social search results to provide a presentation subset of the plurality of search results that is to be presented to a user that is associated with the search query;
• and
• ranking logic configured to rank the plurality of search results based on a relevance of each of the plurality of search results with respect to the search query to provide a plurality of rankings of the plurality of respective search results, a relatively greater ranking corresponding to a relatively greater relevance with respect to the search query, a relatively lower ranking corresponding to a relatively lower relevance with respect to the search query,
• the ranking logic further configured to re-rank each second social search result in the designated subset such that the second social search results in the designated subset and the one or more first social search results provide a series of results that have consecutive rankings.