Patent ID: 8515973

Claim:
A method executed by one or more processors, the method comprising: receiving a query; identifying a plurality of geographic features, each geographic feature being associated with one or more names, each geographic feature being associated with a plurality of names that include the query, each geographic feature being associated with a prominence score; computing a feature-query score for each geographic feature, including: for each name of the geographic feature that includes the query, computing a feature-name score, including: attributing a number of occurrences in a query log of the name in the query to the geographic feature; counting the number of occurrences attributed to the geographic feature; and computing the feature-name score based on a first score and a second score, the first score being proportional to a number of counts of the name attributed to the geographic feature and inversely proportional to a total number of counts of the name in the query log, the second score being proportional to the geographic feature's prominence score and inversely proportional to an aggregate of prominence scores for all geographic features being associated with the name; and computing the feature-query score based on the identified feature-name scores; and ranking the geographic features according the feature-query scores.