Patent ID: 7165119

Claim:
A process, comprising the steps of: soliciting from a user a set of one or more general search parameters specified by the user; soliciting from the user at least one ranking explicitly specified by the user, the rankings based on any of applicability and validity of at least one of the solicited general search parameters in regard to at least one subject matter; associatively storing the set of solicited general search parameters and the rankings specified by the user for at least one future search initiated by the user; receiving a search query from the user, the search query comprising one or more query parameters other than the previously solicited general search parameters; determining the subject matter of the received search query; selecting one or more of the associatively stored solicited general search parameters based upon any of applicability and validity of the associatively stored solicited search parameters with the determined subject matter of the received search query, wherein the selection is at least partially based on at least one of the rankings explicitly specified by the user; and providing a refined search, wherein the refinement comprises any of using the selected ones of the associatively stored solicited general search parameters in conjunction with the received query parameters to perform the search; performing the search with the received query parameters and subsequently refining search results with the selected ones of the associatively stored solicited general search parameters; and performing the search with the received query parameters and subsequently providing any of organizing and sorting of the search results with the selected ones of the associatively stored solicited general search parameters.