Patent ID: 7293016

Claim:
For use with a search engine that processes user queries, a system that locates documents containing search words corresponding to a present user query comprising: at least one processor; at least one memory; an index builder that stores locations of documents indexed by word in an index based on a present query-independent static rank that has been assigned to each document; an index partitioner that orders and partitions the index into index partitions that each contain location information about a group of one or more documents having a continuous range of static ranks that is a subset of an overall range of static ranks; an index scanner that progressively scans the index partitions starting with a partition containing those documents with the highest static rank to locate documents containing a search word; and a scorer that calculates a score based on a present set of documents located thus far in the search and on the range of static ranks of a next partition to be scanned and wherein the index scanner scans the next partition to locate documents containing a search word when the calculated score is above a target score.