Patent ID: 8818983

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for search engine synchronization, the method comprising: receiving, at a computing device, a search engine entry for a search engine, wherein the search engine entry comprises a keyword for invoking the search engine, a globally unique identifier (GUID) uniquely identifying the search engine, and an address of the search engine; determining whether there is a local search engine entry stored locally on the computing device with the same GUID as the received search engine entry; if there is a local search engine entry with the same GUID as the received search engine entry, then performing the steps of: determining whether the received search engine entry is newer than the local search engine entry; and if the received search engine entry is newer, then replacing the local search engine entry with the received search engine entry; if there is no local search engine entry with the same GUID as the received search engine entry, then performing the steps of: determining whether there is a local search engine entry stored locally on the computing device with the same keyword as the received search engine entry; if there is no local search engine entry with the same keyword as the received search engine entry, then adding the received search engine entry to the computing device; if there is a local search engine entry with the same keyword as the received search engine entry, then determining whether the local search engine entry has the same address as the received search engine entry; if the local search engine entry has the same address as the received search engine entry, then performing the steps of: determining whether the received search engine entry is newer than the local search engine entry; if the received search engine entry is newer, then replacing the local search engine entry with the received search engine entry; and if the local search engine entry is newer, then replacing a GUID of the local search engine entry with the GUID of the received search engine entry.