Method and apparatus for determining relevant search results using a matrix framework

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided for ranking documents according to relevancy scoring. In one implementation, a computer-implemented method is provided for receiving search results identifying a plurality of documents resulting from a search, the plurality of documents containing one or more words. The method generates a first matrix containing a term column and a document column, wherein at least one row of the first matrix correlates one of the plurality of documents with one of the terms. The method selects a sort preference, and sorts the two-column matrix according to the sort preference. The method further generates a second matrix containing values representing a measure of overlap between the plurality of documents and the terms. The method further calculates cumulative confidence scores according to the values of the second matrix and ranks the search results according to the cumulative confidence scores.