Patent ID: 7904442

Claim:
A method for facilitating intelligent query operations using a collaborative search procedure that employs knowledge from like-minded individuals, the method comprising: generating a knowledge database based on a set of individuals, wherein the knowledge is based on one or more browsing sessions of the set of individuals; receiving a login request from a user, wherein the user is identified by a unique personal identifier; generating a profile of the user comprising category configurations for the user, wherein the category configurations are entered by the user, and wherein the unique personal identifier identifying the user is associated with the profile of the user; receiving a query from the user; identifying like-minded individuals from the set of individuals based on the profile of the user, wherein the like-minded individuals are individuals with profile category configurations that are similar to the profile of the user; processing the query with a tribal knowledge of the like-minded individuals to produce a collaborative search results list of links for the query, wherein the tribal knowledge comprises knowledge from the knowledge database for the like-minded individuals; recording a session time spent by the user at each of the links provided in the collaborative search results list; tracking sites visited by the user from each of the links provided in the collaborative search results list; incorporating the values attained from recording the session time and tracking the sites visited into the knowledge database for the like-minded individuals; and presenting search results to the user in a two-pane window, which include search results from one or more existing organic search engines in one pane of the two-pane window, the collaborative search results list in the other pane of the two-pane window, and a set of categories associated with the profile of the user, wherein selecting or de-selecting a category alters the categories used to process a search query.