Abstract: Techniques are provided for associating product offerings with product abstractions. The techniques enable generating a second product offering based on a first product offering by mapping items in the first product offering using one or more mapping dictionaries, where a product offering is an offer to sell a particular product by a particular party. Once the second product offering has been generated, a matching score is determined for each of one or more product abstractions; and then one or more product abstractions are associated with the first product offering based on the matching scores for the second product offering.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for associating data with product abstractions is provided. Steps are provided for associating a particular product with a product category, based on a first data set, wherein the first data set includes data that corresponds to an offer to sell the particular product by a particular party and matching the first data set with a product abstraction associated with the product category to which the particular product corresponds.

Abstract: Techniques for selecting a scoring mechanism from a plurality scoring mechanisms for processing queries are provided. The techniques comprise the steps of, for each scoring mechanism of multiple scoring mechanisms, determining, based on a query, multiple parameter values for the scoring mechanism, generating a score based on the multiple parameter values determined for the scoring mechanism, and selecting which scoring mechanism to use to process the query based on the score generated for each scoring system.