Patent ID: 8874567

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving a search query from a user having a user interest profile including one or more topics; receiving first search results responsive to the search query and associated with respective first ranking scores, wherein the first ranking scores are based on a first degree of influence of a topic of the user interest profile on an initial ranking of the first search results; determining second search results responsive to the search query and associated with second ranking scores, wherein the second ranking scores are based on a different second degree of influence of the topic of the user interest profile on the initial ranking of the second search results, wherein the second ranking scores are different than the first ranking scores, including: determining an initial information retrieval (IR) score for a second search result of the second search results, wherein the second search result identifies a resource on a site, determining that the site is associated with a topic-specific boost value for the topic, wherein the topic-specific boost value is based on a number of links to the site from one or more other sites that have been determined to be relevant to the topic, and determining a boosted IR score for the second search result using the topic-specific boost value, wherein the second ranking scores include the boosted IR score for the second search result; and providing, in response to the search query: a first representation of a first ranking of the first search results based on the first ranking scores, the first representation of the first ranking including respective first search result identifiers for the first search results, a second representation of a second ranking of the second search results based on the second ranking scores, the second representation of the second ranking including respective second search result identifiers for the second search results, and a search results page that presents the first search results according to the first ranking using the first representation of the first ranking, wherein, upon user selection of a user control element corresponding to the second degree of influence, the search results page presents the second search results according to the second ranking using the second representation of the second ranking without sending a request to a search engine to recompute the second ranking scores.