Ranking tables for keyword search

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for ranking tables for keyword search. Aspects of the invention include generating lists of candidate tables for inclusion in a search query response, computing table hit matrices, retrieving content from fields of candidate tables having keyword hits, generating ranking features of tables, and computing ranking scores for tables. Aspects of the invention can be used to match keywords against column names, to match keywords against values in subject and non-subject columns, and to match keywords against table descriptions like page titles, table captions, cell values, nearest headings and surrounding text. Which keywords are matched against which fields can depend on the table and/to the query (referred to as “late binding”).