Abstract:
An online system allows content items to be targeted based on interests associated with users. When the online system receives a request to specify targeting criteria associated with a content item, the online system provides an interface to specify targeting criteria. As the online system receives input specifying an interest for inclusion in targeting criteria, the online system retrieves stored interests associated with online system users. Each interest stored by the online system is associated with a type. For example, a type associated with a stored interest indicates whether the interest is from a set of user-generated keywords, from a set of semantic topics mapped from the keywords, or from a set of manually curated broad categories. To avoid confusion from overlap in the types of interests, the online system applies rules to stored interests matching at least a portion of the input to select a set of interests.