Patent ID: 7007017

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for automatically determining query language operators of a Web information source, comprising: providing a search interface for submitting a query, for retrieving documents from a Web information source and for reporting the number of document matches for the query; providing a set of known query operators, each known query operator in the set operating according to at least one syntax, wherein for a test query comprising a query operator and a test key word, each syntax of the operator produces a different number of document matches for the test query at a known Web information source; performing the test query on the Web information source, wherein the test query produces a number of document matches on the Web information source; wherein the set of known operators comprises the operators of case sensitivity and stemming, Boolean operators, AND, OR, NOT and phrases having more than one key word comparing the number of document matches produced by the Web information source with the number of document matches produced by the known operator's different syntaxes; and using an established criteria for determining if comparing results indicate the Web information source supports the known query operator according its matching syntax.