Patent ID: 8843478

Claim:
A method implemented by one or more computers comprising one or more processors, the method comprising: obtaining an image query, the image query being a query for image search results; obtaining ranked image search results responsive to the image query, the image search results each including an identification of a corresponding respective image; generating, by one or more processors, a hierarchical grouping of the images using a plurality of similarity values, each similarity value representing a respective measure of similarity between two different respective images identified by the image search results; identifying, by one or more processors, a respective canonical image for each of a plurality of groups in the hierarchical grouping based on a probability that users select the canonical image when shown a plurality of other images in the group; and providing, by one or more processors, a visual representation of the image search results based on the hierarchical grouping and the identified canonical images, the identified canonical image for each group being presented more prominently than other images in the group, wherein a display size of each canonical image corresponds to a hierarchical level of the group for which the canonical image was identified.