Patent ID: 8271532

Claim:
A method for provisioning a local URL rating cache, said local URL rating cache being configured to serve as a local cache servicing a URL rating request performed in connection with deciding whether a user is permitted to access a website that is associated with a given URL, said method being associated with a device communicably coupled with a client device of said user, said method comprising: receiving URL-relevant attributes about said user; comparing said URL-relevant attributes against attributes stored in a URL cache database to determine analogous URL-relevant attribute sets, wherein said analogous URL-relevant attribute sets include at least a first set of analogous URL-relevant attributes; providing a plurality of choices associated with said analogous URL-relevant attribute sets to said user for said user to select one or more URLs based on one or more sets of analogous URL-relevant attributes associated with one or more of said plurality of choices, each choice of said plurality of choices including a set of URLs associated with an analogous URL-relevant attribute set; receiving a selection provided by said user, wherein said first set of URL rating data is obtained from said URL cache database according to said selection; pre-populating said local URL rating cache with a first set of URL rating data obtained from said URL cache database, wherein said first set of URL rating data corresponds to said first set of analogous URL-relevant attributes stored in said URL cache database, said first set of URL rating data including at least a first set of URLs and a first set of ratings associated with said first set of URLs; sending a rating request to a server, said rating request pertaining to a URL that experienced a cache miss in said local URL rating cache, said server being remote from said local URL rating cache; receiving a rating for said URL that experienced said cache miss in said local URL rating cache, along with a server load indication furnished in response to said rating request, from said server, said server load indication indicating load on said server; employing said server load indication furnished in response to said rating request in deciding whether to pre-fetch ratings for other URLs from said server; if said server load indication furnished in response to said rating request is below a load threshold, performing pre-fetching of at least one rating from said server for at least one other URL, said one other URL representing a URL for a web page that has not yet been requested by said user; and if said server load indication furnished in response to said rating request is equal to or above said load threshold, refraining from performing said pre-fetching of said at least one rating from said server for said at least one other URL.