Patent ID: 7206780

Claim:
A method of weighting search results, the method comprising: submitting a search query to a plurality of search engines; receiving, from each of the plurality of search engines, an associated ranked list of search results based on the search query; receiving a plurality of actual relevance values for a plurality of the search results based on the search query; for at least one of the search results absent the actual relevance value, estimating its relevance value based on its rank, and the ranks and the actual relevance values of at least two others of the search results; determining, for each of the plurality of search engines, an associated weighting value; determining, for each of the ranked lists, an associated weighted relevance value for each of its search results based on the estimated relevance value or the actual relevance value of the search result and the weighting value associated with the search engine that provided the ranked list; combining the ranked lists into a single list; and sorting the search results in the single list based on the associated weighted relevance values; wherein said determining the associated weighting value for a search engine comprises: determining a plurality of categories associated with the search query; determining an associated category search engine weighting value for each of the categories; determining a first associated relevance value for each of the categories based on the search guery and one or more guery terms associated with the category; determining a second associated relevance value for each of the categories by dividing its first associated relevance value by a sum of all first associated relevance values; and determining the associated weighting value based on a sum, over the categories, of each product of the associated category search engine weighting value and the second associated relevance value, outputting the search results.