Patent ID: 8046357

Claim:
A method, comprising: monitoring network activity in an activity log at a network access node on a communications network, wherein the communications network comprises the World Wide Web (WWW), and wherein the network access node comprises one of a web proxy server and an Internet service provider (ISP), and wherein the network activity comprises web traffic on the WWW; transferring network activity data from the activity log to a network traffic monitor via a proprietary data link; generating a near real-time map of the network activity from the network activity data, wherein generating the near real-time map of the network activity comprises generating a web graph from the web traffic, the web graph comprising a plurality of web nodes linked by a plurality of web edges, wherein each of the plurality of web nodes represents a corresponding web object and each of the plurality of web edges represents a weighted link from a first web object to a second web object, wherein a weight of the weighted link is based on a frequency of navigation between the first web object and the second web object; integrating the near real-time map of the network activity with search engine data acquired via a nonproprietary data link; receiving a search request from a user; extracting search results in response to the search request according to their relevance to the search request from the search engine data including the integration of the near real-time map of the network activity and the search engine data; preparing a list of search results wherein the highest ranked search results are placed at the beginning of the list, the ranking being based on the respective weights of the web edges; and returning the list of ranked search results to the user.