Patent ID: 6795820
Filing Date: 2004-09-21
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for identifying and ranking documents contained in a plurality of document collections that form a metacollection, comprising the steps of:receiving a query string at a metasearch engine, and transmitting terms in said query to search engines associated with said document collections; at each search engine, dynamically computing local statistics related to said terms for the documents in a collection with which said search engine is associated, including a score normalization factor that comprises a mean document length for the documents in the collection, in response to receipt of said query, and providing said local statistics to the metasearch engine; computing at least one global statistic related to the documents in the metacollection, including a score normalization factor that comprises a mean document length for the documents in the metacollection, in response to receipt of said local statistics at the metasearch engine, and transmitting said global statistic to said search engines; determining relevancy scores for said documents at said search engines in accordance with said global statistic; normalizing said scores in accordance with said normalization factor for the metacollection; and providing references to documents in said metacollection in accordance said relevancy scores.