Patent ID: 7363282

Claim:
A method with regard to a user performing a search during a single search session at a search engine by way of a search mechanism, said method comprising: monitoring the search mechanism for user behavior data regarding interactions between the user and the search mechanism during the search session thereat, the user behavior data comprising data concerning a plurality of events, each event corresponding to an action of the user at the search mechanism during the search session; monitoring said search mechanism for response data regarding said search session, the response data comprising a results list; determining context data describing a search during said search session, the context data being derived from the user behavior data and from the response data and representing an overall context of the search conducted during the search session; and determining user feedback data describing said search, the user feedback data including implicit user feedback derived from the user behavior data and explicit user feedback regarding the usefulness to a user of the response data and the user response to at least one question, the implicit feedback data comprises time spent reviewing a specific item of the results list, wherein the time spent is calculated by subtracting any time that a user switched to another application while reviewing the specific item, and wherein the explicit user feedback data comprises (a) a user rating of the quality or usefulness of the specific item reviewed from the results list and (b) the user response to the at least one question concerning the results list as a whole; and performing a context-dependent evaluation of the results of the search engine acquired during the search session, the evaluation based at least in part on the determined context data and the determined user feedback data acquired during the single search session.