17. The computer system according to claim 13 , wherein the received attribute is a recency calculated using the following: 
 recency=|sysdate−last_modified_date|, —in number of days when recency>30 then recency=30+recency/30, when recency>99 then recency=99, when recency<0 then recency=99, and wherein sysdate is the current system date.
13. A computer system executing instructions set forth in a computer program, the computer system comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the computer program includes: program code for receiving an attribute for ranking query results; program code for receiving query results from a query of a data source, each received query result having a respective numeric relevancy score relating to the query; program code for, for each received query result, concatenating with its relevancy score a segment of digits representing a value for the attribute corresponding to the query result to form numeric keys, such that the segment of digits is enabled as a score tie breaking factor among query results; and program code for returning the query results ordered by the numeric keys, wherein the numeric keys take the form of a high segment of digits occupied by a relevancy score and a lower segment of digits representing the value for the attribute of the respective query result.