Patent ID: 8700642

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for monitoring changes in relevance of online content, the method comprising: receiving from a user one or more topics of interest to be automatically monitored; querying at least one listing source for entries related to the received topics of interest; storing a time at which the entry was retrieved and a rank received from the at least one listing source for each returned entry in a result store; comparing the rank and time for the returned entries for the user with a previously stored rank and time related to an earlier instance of the returned entries for the same user to determine a rate of change in the rank of each entry over a particular period of time, and, a magnitude of change in rank of each entry; identifying stored entries for the user that indicate at least one of a rate of change in rank at a rate greater than a first threshold stored by the system, or a magnitude of change in rank greater than a second threshold stored by the system; and generating at least one alert to one or more subscribers for each identified entry that has at least one of change in rank at a rate greater than the first threshold, or a magnitude of change in rank greater than the second threshold, wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.