US Patent 7293016 Index partitioning based on document relevance for document indexes

Indexed documents are arranged in the index according to a static ranking and partitioned according to static ranking. Index queries reference the first partition and move to a subsequent partition when a static rank for the subsequent partition is higher than a weighted portion of the target score added to a weighted portion of a dynamic rank corresponding to the relevance of the results set generated thus far. By changing the weight of the target score and dynamic ranks in the subsequent partition score, searches can be stopped when no more relevant results will be found in the next partition.