Patent ID: 8819538

Claim:
A method for identifying referrals for use in generating a website, comprising one or more multi-purpose computing devices adapted to perform the steps of: requesting a list of companies for referrals; validating the list of companies to obtain a valid set of company names; presenting the valid set of company names to select for inclusion in the referrals; receiving a list of selected companies; sending a notification to owners of the selected companies informing them of the referral; determining whether the selected site belongs to a same network as the website; requesting, when a selected company belongs to the same network, the owners of the selected companies (1) whether the referral is acceptable by providing information about the website, providing a link to the website, and providing a link to a page for managing a referral process, and (2) to refer back to the website; inviting, when a selected company does not belong to the same network, the selected site owner to register with the same network, and utilizing details from received information to pre-build a new web site for the selected site; generating one or more referral pages for those owners that have elected to refer back to the website; and generating a referral page for the website, the referral page comprising descriptions of one or more referred sites wherein only the referred-to site owner may change or edit the contents.