Abstract: A system may determine an extent to which a document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results, generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the extent to which the document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results; and rank the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.

Abstract: A system and method for encoding and decoding variable-length data includes storing data values in a data structure including a data field and a tag field. The data field includes one or more variable-length data subfields capable of storing variable-length data (e.g., 1 to N bytes of data). In some embodiments, the data subfields and the tag field of the data structure each start on a byte boundary which simplifies decoding. The tag field includes one or more tag subfields, each corresponding to the one or more data subfields. Each tag subfield includes one or more tag bits which indicate the length of the data stored in the corresponding data subfield. Unpacking or decompressing data values from the data structure can be achieved by using a look-up table of offsets and masks, thus reducing the number of bit operations needed to unpack data values from the data structure.

Abstract: A multi-stage query processing system and method enables multi-stage query scoring, including “snippet” generation, through incremental document reconstruction facilitated by a multi-tiered mapping scheme. At one or more stages of a multi-stage query processing system a set of relevancy scores are used to select a subset of documents for presentation as an ordered list to a user. The set of relevancy scores can be derived in part from one or more sets of relevancy scores determined in prior stages of the multi-stage query processing system. In some embodiments, the multi-stage query processing system is capable of executing one or more passes on a user query, and using information from each pass to expand the user query for use in a subsequent pass to improve the relevancy of documents in the ordered list.

Abstract: A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.