Index cards on network hosts for searching, rating, and ranking
First Claim
1. A method of constructing a catalog of rankings from objects stored within a network, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with one computer storing the catalog and being designated a cataloging site and at least two other computers storing a plurality of objects and being designated source sites, the method comprising:
- a) receiving inputs from users of each of the two or more source sites mapping one or more of the plurality of objects to one or more user defined descriptors associated with a category of descriptors;
b) storing the inputs in an index filec) running on each source site a program which assembles data relating to objects stored on the source site;
d) ranking at least some of the assembled data as a function of a set of ranking rules and the index file, thereby assigning rankings to the assembled data;
e) transmitting the rankings from each source site to the cataloging site; and
f) aggregating the rankings at the cataloging site to generate a catalog of rankings,wherein at least one of the rankings relates to a set of objects on the source site andwherein an agent calculates a relationship value representing a distance in text between objects and, at the cataloging site, these relationship values are combined with relationship values from other sites to create a relationship value table representing the likelihood of an object being similar to another object.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Instead of using a central site including spidering software to recursively search all linked web pages and generate a search index of the Internet, index cards files are created and stored on each web site to provide meta data in the form of conceptual or non-keyword information about the site, such as demographics and categorization information. The meta data is periodically collected and aggregated on a central server. A central catalog of object references is compiled on the central site from the meta data reported from each web site. The information from the index cards is utilized in constructing the central catalog so that more accurate search results may be generated for search queries applied to the catalog, so that the search results may be ranked in meaningful ways, and so that web sites may be more accurately rated.
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Citations
34 Claims
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1. A method of constructing a catalog of rankings from objects stored within a network, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with one computer storing the catalog and being designated a cataloging site and at least two other computers storing a plurality of objects and being designated source sites, the method comprising:
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a) receiving inputs from users of each of the two or more source sites mapping one or more of the plurality of objects to one or more user defined descriptors associated with a category of descriptors; b) storing the inputs in an index file c) running on each source site a program which assembles data relating to objects stored on the source site; d) ranking at least some of the assembled data as a function of a set of ranking rules and the index file, thereby assigning rankings to the assembled data; e) transmitting the rankings from each source site to the cataloging site; and f) aggregating the rankings at the cataloging site to generate a catalog of rankings, wherein at least one of the rankings relates to a set of objects on the source site and wherein an agent calculates a relationship value representing a distance in text between objects and, at the cataloging site, these relationship values are combined with relationship values from other sites to create a relationship value table representing the likelihood of an object being similar to another object. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method of rating objects stored at a site on a network and constructing a catalog of ratings, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with access to the objects, the method comprising:
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a) receiving inputs from a host of the site mapping one or more of the objects to one or more host defined descriptors associated with a category of descriptors; b) storing the inputs in an index file; c) running on the site a program which processes objects stored on the site, thereby assembling values found in at least one of the objects for comparison to a list of rating values; d) generating a rating for each object by relating the values found in the object to the list of rating values; e) aggregating the ratings to generate the catalog of ratings; f) comparing the values found in the object to the host defined descriptors mapped to the objects in the index file; and g) generating a category indication for a result of a search based on the catalog of ratings. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A computer program product residing on a computer-readable medium for performing a method of constructing a catalog of rankings from objects stored within a network, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with one computer storing the catalog and being designated a cataloging site and at least two other computers storing a plurality of objects and being designated source sites, the computer program product performs the steps comprising:
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a) receiving inputs from a host of the site mapping one or more of the objects to one or more user defined descriptors associated with a category of descriptors; b) storing the inputs in an index file c) running on each source site a program which assembles data relating to objects stored on the source site; d) ranking at least some of the assembled data as a function of a set of ranking rules and the index file, thereby assigning rankings to the assembled data; e) transmitting the rankings from each source site to the cataloging site; and f) aggregating the rankings at the cataloging site to generate a catalog of rankings, wherein at least one of the rankings relates to a set of objects on the source site and wherein an agent calculates a relationship value representing a distance in text between objects and, at the cataloging site, these relationship values are combined with relationship values from other sites to create a relationship value table representing the likelihood of an object being similar to another object. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A computer program product residing on a computer-readable medium for performing a method of rating objects stored at a site on a network and constructing a catalog of ratings, the network including a plurality of interconnected computers with access to the objects, the method comprising:
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a) receiving inputs from a host of the site mapping one or more of the objects to one or more user defined rating values; b) storing the inputs in an index file c) running on the site a program which processes objects stored on the site, thereby assembling values found in at least one of the objects for comparison to a list of rating values; d) generating a rating for each object by relating the values found in the object to a list of human input rating values supplied by an owner of the site and stored in a file associated with the site which file is read by said program; e) aggregating the ratings to generate the catalog of ratings; and f) comparing the values found in the object to the user defined rating values. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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Specification