Yahoo And Hand Editing Certain Results

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Method and apparatus for search ranking using human input and automated ranking [appft1.uspto.gov]

Udi Manber and Chi-Chao Chang of Yahoo.

A search system provides search results to searchers in response to search queries and the search results are ranked. The ranking is determined by an automated ranking process in combination with human editorial input. A search system might comprise a query server for receiving a current query, a corpus of documents to which the current query is applied, ranking data storage for storing information from an editorial session involving a human editor and a reviewed query at least similar to the current query, and a rank adjuster for generating a ranking of documents returned from the corpus responsive to the current query taking into account at least the information from the editorial session.

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So no one see's interest in this? If you've seen the non-similar results in Yahoo compared to Google under commercial shopping-type terms then you know that much of what is listed here is what Yahoo does with their results. Same goes with the Inktomi results that some are able to see randomly.

Do a quick find on the following within the patent...

Sections:

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For automated processes, the rankings might be supplied in machine readable form not normally displayed to a human searcher, such as by XML metadata.

Trusted Feed :)
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