Identifying people a person may know

Abstract

A method and system for evaluating the reputation of a member of a social networking system is disclosed. Consistent with an embodiment of the invention, one or more attributes associated with a social networking profile of a member of a social network are analyzed. Based on the analysis, a ranking, rating or score is assigned to a particular category of reputation. When requested, the ranking, rating or score is displayed to a user of the social network.

What is claimed: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving a search request, the search request initiated on behalf of a target member;   generating search results in response to the search request, the search results comprised of links to profiles of additional members of the social networking system;   sorting the search results based on correlations between a profile of the target member and each of the profiles of the additional members, the correlations including degrees of separation between the profile of the target member and each of the profiles of the additional members and an amount of overlap between an employment history specified in the profile of the target member and employment histories specified in each of the profiles of the additional members, the amount of overlap including a time period during which the target member and each of the additional members were employed by a same employer;   and   communicating the sorted search results for display to the target member, one or more components added to the social networking system to improve sorting of search results on the social networking system by implementing the receiving, generating, sorting, and communicating, the one or more components implemented by one or more processors.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , the correlations further including a currentness of the overlap between the employment history specified in the profile of the target member and the employment histories specified in each of the profiles of the additional members. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , the correlations further including a determination of whether each of the profiles of the additional members list the target member as a direct connection and whether address books of each of the additional members list the target member. 
     
     
         4 . A system comprising:
 one or more components added to a social networking system to improve sorting of search results on the social networking system, the one or more components implemented by one or more processors, the one or more components configured to:   receive a search request, the search request initiated on behalf of the target member;   generating search results in response to the search request, the search results comprised of links to profiles of additional members of the social networking system;   sorting the search results based on correlations between a profile of the target member and each of the profiles of the additional members, the correlations including degrees of separation between the profile of the target member and each of the profiles of the additional members and an amount of overlap between an employment history specified in the profile of the target member and employment histories specified in the each of the profiles of the additional members, the amount of overlap including a time period during which the target member and each of the additional members were employed by a same employer; and   communicating the sorted search results for display to the target member.   
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 4 , the correlations further including a currentness of the overlap between the employment history specified in the profile of the target member and the employment histories specified in each of the profiles of the additional members. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 4 , the correlations further including a determination of whether the profiles of each of the additional members list the target member as a direct connection and whether the address books of each of the additional members list the target member. 
     
     
         7 . A non-transitory machine-readable medium embodying instructions which, when added to a social networking system as one or more components included instructions executed by one or more processors of the social networking system, improve sorting of search results on the social networking system by performing operations, the operations comprising:
 receiving a search request, the search request initiated on behalf of a target member;   generating search results in response to the search request, the search results comprised of links to profiles of additional members of the social networking system;   sorting the search results based on correlations between the profile of the target member and each of the profiles of the additional members, the correlations including degrees of separation between the profile of the target member and each of the profiles of the additional members and an amount of overlap between an employment history specified in the profile of the target member and employment histories specified in the each of the profiles of the additional members, the amount of overlap including a time period during which the target member and each of the additional members were employed by a same employer;   and   communicating the sorted search results for display to the target member.   
     
     
         8 . The non-transitory machine-readable medium of  claim 3 , the correlations further including a determination of whether the profiles of each of the additional members list the target member as a direct connection and whether address books of each of the additional members list the target member. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein each of the degrees of separation comprise a first level of sorting of the search results and the correlations comprise a second level of sorting of the search results within each of the degrees of separation. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the address books of each of the additional members are downloaded from client machines of each of the additional members based on a receiving of an authorization from each of the additional members.