Search and retrieval of objects in a social networking system

Abstract

A social networking system receives a query associated with a user and, in response, provides a combined result set comprising objects stored by a social networking system that match the query. The combined result set comprises multiple result sets obtained from different search algorithms. The various objects stored by the social networking system may be of different types representing different concepts, such as user objects, application objects, event objects, location objects, group objects, and hub/page objects, any of which may be included in the result set. The objects of the result set may be further filtered, ordered, and/or grouped based at least in part on known relationships of the user with the objects, such as geographic distances between locations associated with the user and the objects. In one embodiment, one of the search algorithms identifies second-order connections of the user by referring to a connection index that stores a list of the connections of the users. The search algorithm may also identify a number of mutual connections that the user shares with the second-order connections.