61. The method of claim 57 wherein identifying the temporal profile further comprises smoothing the temporal data associated with a results set of documents.
57. A method for predicting precision of search queries comprising: receiving a search query from a user; identifying a temporal profile of the search query from temporal data associated with documents retrieved in response to the search query, the temporal profile capable of being temporally ambiguous, the temporal profile capable of being temporally unambiguous, and the temporal profile capable of being atemporal, such that the temporal profile is at least one of: temporally ambiguous, temporally unambiguous, and atemporal; identifying the search query as one of temporally ambiguous, temporally unambiguous or atemporal to the user; determining temporal features of the temporal profile using at least one of: (a) Kullback-Leibler divergence; (b) autocorrelation; (c) kurtosis; (d) Kleinberg's burst model; predicting an average precision of the search query using a combination of at least one of the temporal features of the temporal profile and a content feature of the documents retrieved in response to the search query, as well as the identification of the query as temporally ambiguous, temporally unambiguous or atemporal.