RELEVANCE-WEIGHTED ATTRIBUTE SORTING APPARATUS AND METHOD

A computer-implemented method is disclosed for sorting listings or search results. In the method, a computer system may receive a query from a client computer. The computer system may respond to the query with listings ranked according to corresponding relevance scores. Thereafter, the computer system may receive a request to sort the listings according to some numeric attribute (e.g., price) corresponding thereto. Accordingly, the computer system may calculate a modified sorting criterion for each of the listings. Each modified sorting criterion may be weighted by both the original relevance score and the numeric attribute of the corresponding listing. The computer system may then serve, to the client computer, the listings ranked according to the modified sorting criteria.