The present teaching relates to obtaining a model for identifying content matching a query. Training data are received which include queries, advertisements, and hyperlinks. A plurality of subwords are identified from each of the queries and a plurality of input vectors for the plurality of subwords of each of the queries are obtained and an input vector for each of the queries is derived based on a plurality of input vectors of a plurality of subwords of the query. A query/ads model is optimized with respect to an objective function via training an input vector for each of the plurality of subwords associated with each of the queries, an input vector for each of the advertisements and links, and a matrix.