Patent ID: 8171079

Claim:
A process for metasearching on the Internet, wherein the steps of the process are performed by a metasearch engine executing on a hardware device, the process comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol request from a client device for the metasearch engine to send a plurality of search queries to a plurality of unique hosts that provide access to information to be searched, wherein the Hypertext Transfer Protocol request from the client device is associated with a plurality of travel related items that may be ordered comprising at least one airline ticket and at least one other type of travel related item; (b) sending the plurality of search queries to the plurality of unique hosts in response to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol request received from the client device; (c) receiving search results from the plurality of unique hosts in response to the plurality of search queries sent to the plurality of unique hosts; (d) incorporating the received search results into a response; (e) communicating the response from the metasearch engine to the client device; (f) receiving another Hypertext Transfer Protocol request from the client device for placing an order for at least one of the plurality of travel related items; (g) processing the order.