A system and method for selecting a subset of keywords from a set of master keywords found in user profiles in a social network is disclosed. The method includes selecting a first and second group of user profiles including one or more keywords and computing the number of occurrences of each of the master keywords in the first and second group of profiles. A value may be computed for each of the master keywords based on a comparison of the number of occurrences in the first group of profiles and the number of occurrences in the second group of profiles. The computed value may be used for selecting the subset of keywords from the master keywords and/or ranking the master keywords.