Patent ID: 7818314
Filing Date: 2010-10-19
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for sorting search results, the method comprising: submitting a query received from a user to multiple search engines; receiving a set of search results for the query from each of the multiple search engines; accessing a surrogate representation for each of several of the search results; identifying, based on the accessed surrogate representation for each of the several of the search results, visual characteristics of the surrogate representation, the visual characteristics being a portion of the surrogate representation presented to the user in place of the corresponding search result itself and including an excerpt of the corresponding search result that is presented to the user; analyzing the visual characteristics of the surrogate representation, including the excerpt that is presented to the user, for each of the several of the search results; assigning a score to each of the search results based on the analysis of the visual characteristics of the surrogate representation, including the excerpt that is presented to the user, corresponding thereto; and merging the sets of search results based on the scores assigned to the search results, wherein: identifying, based on the accessed surrogate representation for each of the several of the search results, visual characteristics of the surrogate representation comprises identifying a date of each of the several of the search results to be displayed to the user upon presentation of the search results; analyzing the visual characteristics of the surrogate representation for each of the several of the search results comprises analyzing the identified date of each of the several of the search results to be displayed to the user upon presentation of the search results to determine an indication of an age of each of the several of the search results; and assigning a score to each of the search results based on the analysis of the visual characteristics of the surrogate representation corresponding thereto comprises assigning a score to each of the search results based on the indication of the age of each of the several of the search results.