1. A computer-implemented method of placing an item in a search result, comprising: at a search engine module, receiving a user search query from a user; at the search engine module, generating a list of candidate query result items by querying with the user search query at an item database; at an item lookup module, calculating a popularity score by performing a search on a set of popularity indices; and from the search engine module, returning the search result to the user, the search result comprising a list of result items ranked by the popularity score.