Patent ID: 8065291

Claim:
A method of categorizing businesses, organizations and individuals in order to facilitate geographically-based searching over the Internet, comprising: entering in a database names of businesses, organizations or individuals; for each name entry, registering a geographical location identifier, the geographical location identifier indicating a geographical location at which the named business, organization or individual is located; for each name entry, registering contact details and a description of goods or services offered by the named business, organization or individual; for at least one of the name entries, adding credential information with respect to the named business, organization or individual, or the goods or services offered by the named business, organization or individual, wherein the credential information is selected from one or more of the following: an indicator of one or more brands of goods and services that are offered by the named business, organization or individual; an indicator of one or more credit cards, each associated with a particular credit card provider, that are accepted by the named business, organization or individual; an indicator of one or more professional or industrial organizations of which the named business, organization or individual is a member; and financial data pertaining to the named business, organization or individual, and the credential information is added by another named business, organization or individual registered in the database that is different from the named business, organization or individual with which the credential information is associated.