Patent ID: 7739281

Claim:
In a computing system comprising at least one processor and a memory communicatively coupled to said at least one processor, a method for adjusting a score of a document returned in a list of scored documents responsive to a search engine query, wherein a Web server is assigned a minimum score to be divided among documents hosted on the Web server and said minimum score increases in proportion to a number of structurally linked documents endorsing said document, the method comprising: identifying, using said computing system, the Web server hosting said document, said Web server defined by at least one of: (A) a server comprising a plurality of Web pages with the same symbolic host name, (B) a server comprising a plurality of Web pages associated with the same domain, and (C) a server having a plurality of Web pages associated with the same IP address; determining, on said computing system, an adjustment factor in inverse proportion to a total number of documents hosted on said Web server; adjusting said score as a function of said adjustment factor, whereby when said number of documents on said Web server increases said score decreases and when said number of documents on said Web server decreases said score increases; and storing the adjusted score in said memory.