Methods, systems and program products for identifying user intent from query patterns including, in one implementation, a method including identifying a current query including a query term, and obtaining search results responsive to the current query. Each search result identifying a document associated with a score indicating relevance. The method includes associating an intent with the session based on submission of a query containing a refining term, where each refining term was previously submitted with different unique queries. The method includes identifying prior sessions, where each prior session includes a query that matches the current query, and each prior session includes a query that contains the refining term. The method includes identifying a document selected more frequently in the prior sessions than by a general population and modifying the scores of the document in the search results. The method also includes ranking the search results based on the scores.