Patent ID: 6963867

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of assisting users in locating items that are arranged within a database system by category, the method comprising: monitoring user actions performed with respect to specific items in the database system to generate user activity data; calculating item scores for specific items in the database system, wherein an item score for an item is dependent upon the user activity data associated with that item, and wherein calculating the item scores comprises automatically giving greater weight to user activity data associated with a most recent time period than to user activity data associated with earlier time periods; receiving a search query specified by a user; identifying, within each of multiple categories of the database system, items that are responsive to the search query (“responsive items”); for each of the multiple categories, calculating a respective category score based at least in-part on the item scores of responsive items in that category; and determining an order in which to present the multiple categories to the user such that the order is dependent upon the category scores.