Patent ID: 7181444

Claim:
A method in a computer system for searching a network for network based content related to a search query, said computer system comprising a storage media and a processor, said method comprising the steps of: receiving said search query; formatting said search query; searching a first cache database for network based content related to said formatted search query, said first cache database comprising previous search results; if no network based content related to said formatted search query is found in said first cache database, providing said formatted search query to at least one search engine, wherein said formatted search query is in a format compatible with said at least one search engine; receiving network based content related to said formatted search query from the search engine; and updating said first cache database with the received network based content from the search engine; retrieving search results from said first cache database, wherein said search results are related to said formatted search query; merging said search results from said first cache database with returnable metadata from a second database, said second database comprising returnable metadata related to said previous search results generated from searchable metadata, wherein said returnable metadata from said second database is related to said search results from said first cache database; and formatting said merged search results related to said search results from said first cache database and said returnable metadata from said second database to one of a user provided format and a requested format.