Described herein are methods and systems for promoting item listings that satisfy a query based on the item listings being assigned to certain categories. A query to identify a set of item listings is processed where each item listing associated with an item or service being offered for sale and assigned to a leaf-level category. The scope of the query is determined based on a dictionary of queries or a length of the query when the query is not found in the dictionary. One or more categories are identified based on the scope of the query. A search results page is presented with the item listings from the identified one or more categories.