Patent ID: 8346757

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, by a processor in a computer system, a search query that includes a plurality of terms; analyzing, by a processor in the computer system, a particular term of the search query to calculate an indication of significance of the particular term of the search query, where analyzing the particular term includes: an determining if the particular term is significant when present in the search query with one or more other terms of the search query, the determining including: identifying pairs of queries in a query log that are the same except that one of the queries in each of the pairs of queries includes the particular term and the other of the queries in each of the pairs of queries does not include the particular term, and identifying whether a group of the pairs of queries is associated with at least a threshold quantity of search results that are common between each of the pairs of queries, and identifying the particular term as a term that has little significance when a group of the pairs of queries is associated with at least the threshold quantity of search results that are common between each of the pairs of queries in the group, the particular term being significant when the group of the pairs of queries is not associated with at least the threshold quantity of search results; identifying, by a processor in the computer system, documents based on a subset of the plurality of terms of the search query, where the subset does not include the particular term that has little significance; and providing, by a processor in the computer system, a list of search results based on the identified documents.