Patent ID: 7877385

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: employing a processor to execute computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable medium to perform the following acts: accessing a click record comprising query-document pair information; forming a bipartite click graph comprising nodes connected by edges, each node representing any of a document and a query and each edge representing at least one observed click; specifying a path length being a number of steps of a walk of the bipartite click graph, wherein specifying the path length comprises setting the number of steps of the walk wherein a stationary distribution below a threshold is maintained during the walk of the bipartite click graph, wherein the number of steps of the walk is based at least in part on a calculated mixing time of the bipartite click graph, the mixing time represents a length of time to reach the stationary distribution, and the stationary distribution represents when all information about a starting node of the walk is lost; given at least one first node in the bipartite click graph, determining a similarity measure between the first node and each of a plurality of second nodes, wherein the number of steps in the bipartite click graph between each second node and the first node is equal to the specified path length, and wherein the determined similarity measure is based at least in part on the specified path length; ranking the second nodes on the basis of the similarity measure results; and retrieving information from the click record associated with the second nodes based at least in part on the ranking information.