US Patent 7752195 Universal query search results

A universal query result set is generated from several different search index result sets by including identifications of items from the different search index result sets in an accurate manner. After a query has been submitted, search index result sets are received from several different search indexes, an allocation score for each search index is computed and a universal item score for the top-level item identified in each search index is computed. The allocation score and the universal item score are combined for the top level item for each search index result set. The item with the highest combined score is added to the universal query result set.