9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising: routing the received online question to at least one candidate answering user of the ranked first set of candidate answering users or the ranked second set of candidate answering users; receiving, subsequent to routing the received online question, a follow-up online question from the asking user; and routing the received follow-up online question to the at least one candidate answering user.
8. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, on one or more processors, an online question from an asking user; identifying, by the one or more processors, one or more topics of the received online question; identifying, by the one or more processors, a first set of candidate answering users from a plurality of users, the first set of candidate answering users excluding commonality with the asking user; identifying, by the one or more processors, a second set of candidate answering users from the plurality of users, the second set of candidate answering users sharing one or more contextual factors with the asking user, the first set of candidate answering users having an expertise level same as that of the second set of candidate answering users, the expertise level being related to the identified one or more topics of the received online question; determining, by the one or more processors, whether the identified one or more topics of the received online question are subjective topics; when at least one topic of the identified one or more topics of the received online question is determined to be subjective topics, ranking, by the one or more processors, the second set of candidate answering users higher than the first set of candidate answering users; and when the at least one topic of the identified one or more topics of the received online question is determined not to be subjective topics, ranking, by the one or more processors, the first set of candidate answering users to a same order as the second set of candidate answering users, wherein the one or more contextual factors are distinct from the identified one or more topics.