Patent ID: 8909637

Claim:
A method comprising: by one or more computing devices, receiving a search query provided by a user; by one or more computing devices, identifying a set of search results in response to the search query, wherein one or more of the search results are associated with one or more features of a social-networking system, wherein at least one of the features is the user's ability to form a friend connection with other users of the social-networking system; by one or more computing devices, ranking the set of search results based on a location of the user in combination with historical behavior of the user at the location in selecting one or more prior search results; by one or more computing devices, boosting, based on a business objective of the social-networking system, one or more ranks of one or more of the search results that are associated with the feature based on a level of the user's interaction with the feature such that the lower level of interaction the user has with the feature, the higher the one or more ranks of the one or more search results associated with the feature are boosted; and by one or more computing devices, presenting the set of search results to the user according to the ranking and boosting.