Patent Document ID: 8825644
Application ID: 13613242

Base Claim:
1. A method performed by one or more processing devices, comprising: obtaining search results responsive to a search query submitted by a user; determining, based on usage of a social network by the user, a maturity score for the user, where the maturity score represents a measure of user development of the user within the social network; for a particular type of content associated with a search result, retrieving, from a set of utility score instructions, a utility score instruction for the particular type of content; wherein the utility score instruction defines, for the particular type of content in the social network, a relationship between a utility score and the maturity score; wherein the utility score represents a measure of utility of the particular type of content to the user as defined by the measure of user development in the social network; and wherein the utility score is determined independent of user input; wherein defined relationships across the set of utility score instructions promote a first pre-defined type of content among less mature users of the social network relative to other maturities of other users of the social network and promote a second pre-defined type of content among more mature users of the social network relative to the other maturities of the other users of the social network; determining, based on the set of utility score instructions and the maturity score, utility scores for the search results; and adjusting rankings of the search results based on the utility scores.

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Claim 5:
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user comprises a first user, the maturity score comprises a first maturity score, the utility scores comprise first utility scores, and wherein the method further comprises: determining a second maturity score for a second user requesting the search query; determining, based on the second maturity score, second utility scores for the search results; and adjusting the rankings of the search results based on the second utility scores; wherein the adjusted rankings of the search results based on the second utility scores vary from the adjusted rankings of the search results based on the first utility scores.