Locality-sensitive search suggestions

Abstract

Techniques are described herein for providing locality-sensitive search suggestions. When users issue search queries, the localities of the users who issue those search queries are associated with the search queries. The users may be grouped into populations, such that each population has a locality that corresponds to the localities of the users in that population. The issuances of the search queries induce a distribution of interest with respect to the issued search queries among the populations. A subset (e.g., one or more) of the issued search queries is suggested to a user who provides a search query (e.g., a preliminary search query or an issued search query), which is deemed to be relevant to the subset of the issued search queries, based on the distribution of interest.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 associating each search query of a plurality of search queries with user localities of respective users who issue that search query;   matching the user localities to population localities of respective populations among which the users are distributed;   determining, at a Web server using one or more processors of the Web server, cumulative interest of the users in each population with respect to each search query; and   suggesting at least some of the plurality of search queries to a first user having a first user locality that matches a first population locality of a first population based on the cumulative interest of the users in the first population with respect to each of the at least some of the plurality of search queries.